


Lacuna Beach

by god_queen



Series: Twin Verse [1]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Kinda, Platonic Cuddling, Sibling Incest, Slow-ish burn, at first, au-ish, i like board walks ok, im garbage i love these two, nocturnal twins, not beta read we die like men, part of a series, pre-cult days, the fuck in the end, these two are disasters though, troy and tyreen grow a pair of feelings, two bums find out they love eachother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 15:01:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20099116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/god_queen/pseuds/god_queen
Summary: The twins have known each other all their shared lives, share a bond like no other, it's just been them against the world and only them for as long as they can remember. What happens when that bond changes in both of them at the same time?Set in pre-cult days.for dino and egg, part of a series, this is not formatted good will fix later.





	1. Beach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DramaticDino](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DramaticDino/gifts), [alchemist17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemist17/gifts).

There was something to be said for the cool breeze of the night across the ocean, sifting up the sandy beaches and across the manmade walkways. Something about the chill after the sweltering heat of the summer’s day, when the sounds had all been washed away by the sea. No birds, no shouting children. Just the din of old, buzzing streetlights and the distant crash of the waves.

Tyreen watched the night, head hidden between her knees, all huddled up on a bench facing the shore. An errant eye could have confused her for a coat thrown over a duffle bag, as still and square as she had made herself out to be.

The clanking footsteps behind her seemed to harbor no such sentiment. They approached steadily, bit by bit growing louder until she could hear the crunch of sand beneath her body. And then silence.

The figure had stopped right behind her, and from there began to lean down until he towered above her shoulder. She could have been an egg, and him a rooster, with how much their sizes differed. Or perhaps it was the appearance of her curled up on the bench and him extended out around her like a coiling serpent.

Rather than strike, he extended one hand out slowly and opened it to reveal a present. Wrapped in tin foil, smelling of hot grease and oil. The stench made Tyreen’s stomach turn, once because it was upset, and again because it was empty.

Before snatching the offered gift from his oversized hand, she regarded it. A button nose scrunched, eyes narrowed on the tacky depiction stamped across its side.

“The Racist Hotdog stand?” She said in a huff, shoulders slumping down further in her ball.

“Not many options at eleven thirty,” Troy replied. He stepped lazily over the bench, one long leg at a time, chains jingling and big boots scuffing against the ground. Then he dropped back with his own huff. His lanky form took up the entire bench and his arms reached to either side, even around where Tyreen was seated.

“Thought they called this the island that never sleeps.” He could barely hear her mutter through her coat, could barely see the little huff of words scattering the fur brim. Her coat was weatherproof, some old soldier’s duster garnished with a black fur scarf and a hundred different pins and buttons. Skulls, bombs, and any number of profanities peeked back at him under the flickering streetlights, each more visible than the girl who wore it.

“Well,” he started, paused to scratch lazily at his mohawk, then continued, “The rides are still running. Passed a couple of preps talking about riding the ferris wheel.”

The idea earned a hiss of angry air from the ball at his side. But that little display earned its own reaction, Troy’s lips quirking up in a hidden smirk.

“Hey, it’s better than being in the wild with nothing. Or in the city hunted by thugs. Or at home,” his words ebbed away, mirroring another distant rush of the water retreating from the land.

The ambiance edged in between them, making itself welcome on their private throne by the sea. Troy seemed comfortable with it. He was still sprawled out, limbs pointing every direction. His head was lulled back, staring up at into the dull orange haze of the night, all tan skin, dark makeup, and chrome piercings.

In contrast, Tyreen looked near the same but with a vastly different attitude. She had her brother’s complexion, the same dark eyeshadow and lipstick, the same smeared marks of makeup down either side of her face, the same mohawk, just with an icy blue streak coating it. It was her face- her expression- that contrasted him.

Troy was content to drift where his thoughts would take him, just along for the ride, as if the bench he was sprawled across was just a raft through his muddled mind and he had no investment in where it took him.

Tyreen was far less passive to her thoughts. They crashed across the insides of her eyes, each time contorting her face in twisting glimpses of anger, sadness, madness, and more.

The silence had outstayed its welcome as far as she cared. Her head extended up out of her coat, then came a hand wielding a racist hotdog.

“I’m pissed!” She snarled, thoughts emphasized by a jab of her weaponized processed meat.

“I almost couldn’t tell,” Troy replied dully at her side.

Only when she turned to glare at him did she realize that he was taking a slow drag of a cigarette. She promptly snatched it from his lips.

“Give me that!” Tyreen took a quick puff of her own, hardly letting the air through her lungs, then went back to perching with a cigarette in one hand an a hotdog in the other. Both hands lightly shook, though it may have been more her knees madly bouncing in her coat.

“We had it good,” she accused the darkness. “Stable home, decently shitty jobs… Things to do, people to see. People to do, things to see. The fuck did we go wrong, Troy?” By the end, she was done accusing the inanimate sand with her tone and had gone to exasperatedly swinging her hotdog at her brother.

“Hmm…” Troy tapped his chin in mock contemplation. “It might have been dressing up as drug dealers,” he suggested. “While communicating with known drug dealers… While in possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia.”

“Well, yeah,” Tyreen replied. She waved the hotdog at him once more, brushing it side-to-side in front of his face. “But how else are you supposed to sell drugs?”

“Got me with that one. Actually, fuck all that. It was probably just cause our landlord hated us. Was just waiting for a chance to fuck us over.”

“Yeah… Fuck that bitch though.”

With the frustration finally erupted out of the tiny ball of terror, Tyreen let herself deflate with a long, frustrated sigh. She ended up rolling back, partially because the grooves of wood beneath her were digging into her ass and it was getting more than a little painful. Behind her, she found Troy’s arm, and from there she ended up in the crook of his arm against his chest, letting the heat he radiated warm the chill she felt.

“What are we going to do, Troy?” She asked, or muttered, through his coat.

At first there was no reply. Troy just lazily stole the cigarette back from her limp hand, placed it in his mouth, and stopped moving..

Had Tyreen been looking for an answer, he would have given her one. But she was no more looking for an answer from him than she was asking their little corner of paradise.

No one had walked past in the time Troy had been back with her. There was silence punctuated by the sea, the salty smell of the ocean carrying hints of popcorn and cotton candy, and the night painting the island around them. That was what they were surrounded by, just two people sitting on the edge of an amusement park that never truly slept, but was content to rest its eyes for just a moment.

The seconds passed into minutes. The minutes began to stretch and tear. Time was trying its best to keep moving, but even the two of them on their chair had become so lethargic that the world was beginning to look like a still painting. Everything was a perfect, still depiction of itself, down to the stub of a cigarette captured between Troy’s lips. Save, of course, the thump-thumping of his heart against Tyreen’s ear, and the clawing thoughts and memories of their life coming screeching to a halt.

“You know I’m no good with plans,” Troy said at last. It was a half-hearted mumble, and he had to force his head up after it just to see if his sister had in fact fallen asleep.

As still and silent as she had been, the crinkle of tin foil met him by the time his gaze finally brought her in focus. She started with a few small bites of her hotdog, all the while staring into the void where the sea would be.

“I know, little brother.” Tyreen said, and with a soft hand freed from the cigarette, gently caressed his stomach through his coat. “You just leave everything to me.”

The sun had set long before either twin had taken perch atop the worn bench. Hours more had passed since, hours quieter and longer as the paths of the living across the beach dwindled and movement had settled into the occasional gust of wind.

In all that time, an empty pit of loss had been settled where Tyreen’s fire lived. The foundations had been shook, the fire blown down to embers. Echoing doubts churned, a cyclical murmur of questions. Questions about fate. Questions about circumstance. So many “why us”s repeated ad nauseum that they could have filled a choir the size of the beach, or the ocean beyond. Even her own anger, her fire, had been co-opted into angry tirades over circumstance.

Internal as it was, Tyreen had pictured herself shouting each doubt from her podium, that point where the concrete gave way to sand just feet from her. In her fabricated tirade, her brother was seated in the same spot, watching her scream her vanities into the sand. Or the ocean. Or a crowd. The landlady. The cops. Their mother. Their father.

After she had mentally exhausted every person she could have blamed their circumstance on, Tyreen had circled around to the same thing. No matter where she pictured, what podium she could put herself on, the resulting image was always the same. Them. Troy and Tyreen. Tyreen and Troy. Every thing- person, place, or otherwise- in Tyreen’s life had relied on some criteria or another. Except for Troy.

Imaginary tirades faded on that realization. The questions asked no longer mattered. One moment Tyreen was asking herself how their life could have been taken away on requirements life gave no support for them to meet in the first place. The next moment, Troy. No requirements, no laws, no asking for more than she had to give, no pushing her into a box just to punish her for being there. Just Troy.

The last bit of processed meat took much longer than the previous to finish chewing. All along, Tyreen’s eyes were on the sand at the edge of the streetlight’s grasp, on a time and place in that vicinity that would either never exist, or had not yet come to pass.

And then, the crumpling of tin foil. That glossy representation of a moustache, the dull ache of loss, doubts, self-imposed ties to society’s standards, all crumpled up together and tossed loosely into the void beyond the light.

The hotdog wrapper left Troy and Tyreen back at their bench, where Tyreen was stretching all of her limbs out into the crisp bite of the coastal air. Even out of her cocoon, no comparison in size could be made between the two. Troy encompassed the entire bench. As far as Tyreen was concerned, Troy was the bench.

Said brother had just been watching the entire time. A simple act, patting him, eating her hotdog, stretching. His view was contextual to his sister though, he saw a pledge, a transformation. His sister, back and stronger than ever, splayed out across his lap, each limb taking as much space as possible with its own dramatic flair.

It took awhile for her to contort herself enough. She made it eventually, shoulders over his thighs, one arm pointed to the end of the bench, one leg over backrest, one leg point to the sea, her face angled up at him. Then came a little twinkle of recognition as her eyes met his, a playful squint, and a coy scrunch of her nose.

“Fancy meeting you here.” There was so much smile in her voice that Troy could hardly recognize it. But he ate it up, and each word he could feel his face pulling more into a lopsided grin.

“What are the odds?” Troy replied.

“Hmm…” She made the noise, then put her free hand under her chin and let her eyes drift away in consternation. “You know… I’d say the odds are pretty high.”

“Pretty high?” He asked, and paused to lean down to her, eyes locked square with her playful ones. “The odds or you?”

“The odds,” she replied. Her eyes flicked down, to where her hand was idly picking a bit of paint off the scuffed leather collar of his coat. Then they were back up, staring into him, through him, unravelling him into every mote of his own existence. “I figure, the chances of me ending up next to you, and you ending up next to me. Have to be pretty high, right?”

“Ooh…” His voice spoke disagreement, as did the way he leaned back away from her, putting as much physical distance between himself and the disgrace in his lap as possible. But the smile on his lips betrayed him, even as he continued, “I would say this is more a coincidence, I was just passing through anyway.”

“Sure.” She smiled up at him, smiled so much her eyes disappeared behind makeup-smeared cheeks. “I would hate to get between you and your important time. I know you have a life to get back to, and I’m not important enough to-” She couldn’t finish. The charade broke through Troy. She could feel it, her arm, her body, resting against his torso as the laughter barked from his mouth.

His laughs were so out of place. Their world for hours had been a still portrait of the ambiance around them, and them nestled atop the bench in the center. In that world, no sound was allowed to break over the gentle lapping waves of the ocean. That was the law.

Then that glass of ambiance over them was broken with Troy’s laughter thrown from his mouth like a hammer. And it felt so good for Tyreen to join in, throwing herself in until her belly was contorting with each lilting harmony to their cacophonous rhapsody.

Time began to stretch again, seconds and minutes blending into a whole, each fully unwilling risk interrupting the twins. Time gave them their space, until their laughter was trailing into the distance and inviting silence to sweep into its wake.

Time resuming saw Tyreen fully encompassing her brother’s lap. Her face was turned to the sky, to the ugly orange haze that caught all of the dreams like theirs, offering only a weak semblance of what actually lay beyond.

“Man, fuck life. Fuck the world,” Troy spouted to the sky he was facing, content that his sister would catch what true meaning sifted down from his words.

“Fuck it all,” Tyreen echoed. “Twins for life, babe.”

Once more, Troy lifted his head from where it hung over the back of the bench, to look down at his sister. This time, he raised with all the strength and confidence that had been sucked away before, and when he caught eyes with his sister, saw all the same in her.

“So, what’s the plan?” He asked.

“Same plan as always, my dear Troy. Take over the world, become gods, retire to our own private island made out of gold.”

“Foolproof,” Troy retorted, nodding vigorously to affirm her flagrantly toothy grin.

“One step at a time. Step one!” Tyreen punctuated her shout by stabbing one finger into the sky, fully extended, and used the momentum to drag the rest of her torso behind it. “Get the fuck off this bench. The fuck are we supposed to be, bums? Get your terms right, Troy, only hard working hobos in this joint.”

“Fuck, man. No one told me I’d have to get up,” Troy whined helplessly in her wake. He was still sprawled out where he had been, though looking a bit more frightened, whereas Tyreen was exactly where she had been, just sitting up. “Wouldn’t have taken all those drugs if I knew I was going to have to get up.”

“Is that where our last stash went?” Tyreen asked, pointing her laughter ahead. Despite her plans to move, her hips seemed cemented to her brother, and so far she had only managed to flail her arms in front of her and stretch her head down. Still a bit closer to world domination, but not exactly off the bench.

“You know me, sister. Speed-balled that shit and I’ve been feeling it since.” As he spoke, his hand produced a sandwich bag full of snack bags, each one containing a measured amount of capsules or dust.

Tyreen’s eyes shimmered, shining brighter than the streetlight above on the bag of wonders in front of her. With unabashed glee, she snatched it from her brother’s hand and held it aloft.

“Me likey,” she said as she held it, arching herself in the process, to present it to Troy’s face. “This shit is world domination step three, babe. You might have just secured yourself another personal island.”

“This is why you pay me the big bucks,” he retorted, complete with wink and fingers pointed at her smiling face.

With life freshly surging through her veins, she rolled her legs down, centered at her hips, and acrobatically dropped off the bench. No one was in view to applaud the fact that she dismounted her brother with both feet on the ground, but a silent audience was clapping inside of her head in awe.

Troy joined her a few seconds after. He stretched up as he stood, higher and higher over her own short frame, until his head blocked out the streetlight’s glare into Tyreen’s eyes.

She was stood there, watching him stand, one hand raised to block out the glare of the light, now positioned directly in front of his face. Her matte duster now reached down to the ground, pins and buttons shining like stars. Her hand was covered, save the fingers, in studded leather gloves. Her feet cushioned by several inches of rubber beneath high heeled leather platform shoes. A bushy mohawk of dark hair, highlighted by a cascade of electric blue, covered dark skin and even darker eyeliner.

He was stood there, towering above her. His chin was tilted up, eyes pointed down, one hidden beneath a sheet of hair from his own dark mohawk. A leather coat barely covered his torso, reaching an inch shy from his wrists, clinging to his lean frame, yet marked with patches and skulls across and rimmed with spikes at his shoulders. His gloves were leather, fingerless, knuckled with a row of metal fangs, and resting where his hands had come to sit over his hips. Below that, the skinniest of jeans and leather, steel-toed (inside and out) boots with more straps than their combined years.

“We’re fucking fabulous,” Tyreen commented, standing with her hand up at his face for a moment longer, a tool to frame just how over the top their posing had become.

Troy still played his part, smirking down at Tyreen, doing his best to look imposing, handsome, and plain badass. “Was there any doubt?”

“Naw,” Tyreen replied as she finally let her hand drop and mirrored her twin’s cocky pose. “Just reminding us in case the world thinks it can tell us otherwise.”

“Well, we are certainly the most fabulous trash you’ll find in your entire life.” Troy’s smirk devolved into a smile. One arm came up to rest casually on Tyreen’s shoulder, as if magnetically drawn.

“Future God and Goddess right here,” Tyreen reminded him from her place as his shoulder perch. “Kings of the fucking world.”

Troy was listening, but his eyes had begun to wander. They turned, first to the dark horizon of the ocean, then, along with his head, to survey the area around them, completely sweeping over his sister’s head without noticing her.

The island that never slept was still resting its eyes. The glittering glow of a ferris wheel in the distance highlighted the darkened roofs of a row of buildings that stretched out into the distance. Under the sun, the walls would be raised away, like eyes opening to the world, as dozens of storefronts would bloom from their shells. There would be hundreds of tourists walking up and down the concrete, over the dustings of sand, enjoying their ice creams and fried pastries.

From where they were standing, Troy could see the lines of the streetlights stretching down the boardwalk in perfect unison, each with its own unique buzz and flicker. They painted and invisible edge, where the concrete turned to wooden slats, and both met void. He knew that meant the sidewalk raised up, the sand died away, and water lapped away beneath the walk. It was part of the reason they had come here.

Years back, when they had first arrived in front of the glistening behemoth that was the city, both still smeared with dirt and full of life beneath, they had come here. It was a tourist attraction, stamped across so many products Troy felt like the image was emblazoned on the back of his eyes during birth. The sand, the pier, the stores, the ferris wheel above, the skyline of skyscrapers above even that.

Both had been a little more innocent back then, save a few blood stains of course. They had also been a little closer in appearance, almost perfect twins. It must have been just a few months after he matched her height, because he remembered being level to her as she fawned, wide-eyed over all the sights, sounds, and smells.

The memory drew Troy’s eyes back down. When he found her, she was staring up at him, eyes still wide and so evocative of every beautiful thing in the world that she saw. Of course, this time they had been turned on him as he was lost on a boardwalk of memories.

“Ready to take over the world?” She asked, quietly, sweetly yet so seductive.

“Always ready for you,” he snapped back, tilting his head down towards her just so she could enjoy the overt smirk plastered across it.

“Oof, you charmer,” she teased with her same sweetly seductive tone. “You’re going to make me ruin my one pair of pants here.” Just for him, she wiggled her hips against his leg, eeking out a hearty chuckle from above her.

“I’m here to please. And serve. Sometimes both at once.” Troy had gone back to surveying the quiet night, only to turn at his last comment and flash her another emphasized smirk, to which he only earned a roll of her eyes. “Speaking of serving. Step one, complete.”

“We are off the bench,” Tyreen confirmed. And they were, standing where they had raised up, just a step away from the bench that had anchored the last several hours of their life. The entirety of their new life, with no home, law enforcement out to drag them behind bars, and no friends to count on outside the present company. In that context, they were both looking at the world as if it was new. As if everything they would face in the silhouette of darkness under a haze of orange was going to be a brand new challenge of its own right.

“We have step three,” Troy summarized. “Which just leaves… Step two.”

Tyreen listened, focus switching between Troy and the city beyond. Then she smiled wordlessly at him, took his arm, positioned it low on his hip, poked his thumb into the pocket of his skinny jeans, and looped her own arm in it.

She hung from her brother like a giddy privileged child being escorted, or escorting, a fine gentleman of upstanding taste. Each step she took, he mirrored, and with it the pair’s new world began to expand from a single bench to a sidewalk, then further away from the sea and into a cemetary row of sleeping storefronts.

“Step two, brother,” she said, wonder clinging to each word, pointed by her sweeping a hand out to the darkened street before them. It was closer to an alleyway, whose daylight mirror would be a tight row of temporary tattoo parlors and souvenir kiosks awaiting victims like a bear trap. At night, the streetlights were spaced farther apart than the pier, the walls closer together. A tattered newspaper flittered in the sea breeze, catching onto a lamp post, but outside of that there were only vague, oft menacing shadows lining up to the towering wheeled giant in the distance.

Troy leaned down, seemingly curving his entire back to keep their tether, yet also align his head from her perspective. He looked, first at her arm, then down it to her hand, then across at what she was gesturing to.

“Step two is your fly as fuck nail job?”

Tyreen visibly and metaphorically paused, her own eyes trailing a reverse course from where she had motioned to her brother’s smug grin. She paused again, expression fluttering between a look of contempt and pride. Then she turned back in front of them.

Her hand, still outstretched where it had been motioning towards the ferris wheel, was tipped with the deepest black, flawlessly glossy, viciously pointed nails she had ever admired in her life. Of course Troy had done them. Of course he had, who else could paint as fabulous a masterpiece as the two of them.

“Sure. Step two is my fly as fuck nails.” She allowed him the victory of a satisfied smirk, then nudged him and motioned out again.

With just the nudge, he relented and set his smug grin back to a cocky scowl, then straightened up. The pair easily went from a perfect depiction of joking siblings to two punks on their road to world domination, Tyreen pointing the way and Troy striding beside as the muscle.

“Step two point one in Tyreen and Troy’s guide to world domination,” Tyreen narrated. “Forget all of that shit and enjoy ourselves for a night.”

“I like it,” Troy chimed in.

“Of course you like it, I came up with it. That’s the plan, and that’s just what we’re going to fucking do.” Tyreen puffed out her chest, pulling Troy along as they strutted their way in town. With a grin, she continued, adding a sway to her step that pulled Troy from side to side, “You know why?”

“Why’s that, Tyreen?” He asked.

He had made the mistake of looking down at her again. He already knew it was a metaphorical question, he had willingly offered her the opportunity to tell him an answer that he couldn’t know to a question that had not been asked. Tyreen had a look of joy on her face, so similar to the wide-eyed awe she had the first time they had walked these streets, but this look was entirely focused on him.

“Cause we’re fly motherfuckers, Troy. That’s why. And you know what fly motherfuckers don’t do, Troy?”

“What’s that, Tyreen?” Troy parroted.

“Fly motherfuckers don’t let shit bother them because they are fly motherfuckers. You should know that by now, Troy, being that you are both one and in the current company of one.”

They passed another dark street while Tyreen was animatedly motioning to herself. Theirs was a casual stroll, still comfortably tethered with her arm looped through his. Already, dozens of dark and worn buildings had passed, each one gradually marking the lights of the ferris wheel growing brighter.

Here, it was far enough inland that the cold sea breeze filtered through other passages. Left in the stale air of its wake was the oppressive smell of cotton candy and popcorn. The distant lapping of the water was similarly being overwritten by the droning din of mechanical parts whirring, echoing ride jingles, and the occasional spattering of actual humans. Troy and Tyreen had only seen a few of those in their new life, one was actually tucked into a sleeping bag in the shadows that they were passing.

“They worry about shit when it’s time to worry about shit,” Tyreen was continuing. Troy could only nod with each statement, well aware that she was talking just to talk at this point. If they had a quota for their combined words spoken, Tyreen was easily filling it for both of them. The thought struck him as odd, because it seemed almost as if it explained a lot of her behavior. Of course, right after he humored the thought, he discarded it. They both knew that Tyreen had all the energy and excitement that he often lacked, and it was showing full force tonight.

“Here’s the plan, Troy. The plan for the plan.” She paused, thought, then counted off on her fingers. “The plan for the plan for world domination… Step two point tw-one. Right?”

Troy nodded above her. His attention was split on her and the outside world, of which they were passing the first actual store front with lights still on. They were just there to spotlight a platter of ‘authentic’ clamshell overpriced replicas, all safely locked away behind a metal shutter that he could have easily just pushed in to take them. But it was the thought that counted.

“Right, Troy?” Tyreen repeated, voice lilting in annoyance, from beneath his line of sight.

He was almost forced to turn his attention back on her. It would probably get to the violence and pinching if he didn’t, and he didn’t need his nipples tweaked again tonight. “Yeah- you saw the nod- it sounds about right to me.”

“Don’t look so insulted,” she tutted, “I was just asking a question.”

Troy carefully rubbed his free hand over his chest, earning a look somewhere between suspicion and confusion from his side. “Sure…”

After giving him another several seconds of judgment for the display, Tyreen’s eyes snapped to their front and began to grow manic once more. The excited mania in her was still full force, an untamed tempest that could equally aide or destroy in the blink of an eye. Of course, the tempest behind those eyes was always the driving force for them, Troy was just along for the ride. He was used to her switching gears a few times.

Tyreen, for her part, was already back in full gear. “Plan for plan,” she simplified, “Two point one. Fly motherfuckers. So, here’s how it’s going to roll, see. We’re going to ride up to the rides, shoot the shit, play a few games, break a few laws. The usual.”

“Completely usual,” Troy confirmed. Also usual, ignoring how they were still walking like they were going down the aisle while Tyreen bounced and swayed next to him like she was trying to turn that aisle into a dance floor.

“The usual,” Tyreen repeated once more for good measure. “It’s going to be the loveliest night of my life, of course. You’re in charge of making sure of that.”

“Naturally.”

“And after we-” Tyreen paused her words to emphasize a quick dance, jutting her hips out almost comically into Troy, “-roomba our way through, we’ll stop at that little outhouse near the bridge and pretty ourselves up. Gotta look our fliest for this next part, cause we are-” With a twirl of her fingers and a leather glove pointing Troy’s way, Tyreen threw the sentence over to him.

Troy looked lost. His gaze flicked between the different sights around him as if the buildings could finish her request. The buildings couldn’t, of course. But they were in a much better state than the grit of the shadows that they were steadily leaving behind. The little open-air shake shack that they passed was almost pristine. It could have even been, with the lights all on and someone inside. Troy could only imagine that it still had the shine of fresh gloss like the paint of a new car.

All the buildings were looking nicer. The ferris wheel was much closer, much higher, than it had been their entire visit here. The lights and echoes of laughter and life flowed through the stark night like blood through the beating heart of the island. That life it gave stretched out around its base. From where they were walking, they could still see a few stragglers hanging out under the wheel in the brightest light. From there out, the excitement faded with the last vestiges of humanity. Even the postcard sights, the stores all dolled up for the perfect tourist tag, were closed and shuttered.

The sights had done a decent job of making Troy forget his adopted responsibility. It was a sharp, burning pain in his side that reminded him. When he turned to where Tyreen was pinching him, he found a waiting, expectant look.

“Cause we’re…” She prompted.

“Fly motherfuckers?” Troy guessed.

Immediately, her crabby expression went angry. The disappointment was clear in the way she pulled him to a stop and shook her head.

“No, dumbass… You should know this one too.”

“I should?” Troy asked. Wide, empty eyes blinked back at Tyreen, then turned away, once more seeking answers in the scenery with sweeping gestures from his free hand.

“Yes, you should,” she snapped. “Try to follow along this time. After the loveliest night of my life, your responsibility by the way-”

“Noted-”

“We go out on the town-”

“Aren’t we already out-”

“Troy!” Tyreen hissed and Troy was treated to another searing pinch at his side. He made a noise of relenting, pawing softly at her hand. Her fingers eased, but her eyes were still glaring into the side of his skull. “No interrupt-y.”

He didn’t answer, instead starting them back on their leisurely walk towards the giant glowing wheel in the sky. Then he jerked to the side, nearly toppling the two of them after the corner of his eyes caught Tyreen making a threatening motion towards his tender manflesh.

“Now. If I could get two words out without being interrupted.” Tyreen gave a moment of silence. Troy, being the smart boy that he was, chose not to take the bait and honored the empty air between them. “Good. Summarizing, plans, bla bla, loveliest night, your responsibility. Now, we’re freshening ourselves up, doing the do, getting ready for a night on the town. Of course we have to freshen ourselves up because we’re a-”

Despite the pregnant pause and the excited look Tyreen was giving him, Troy wisely decided to keep his mouth shut a while longer. For that, he was rewarded just a slightly judgmental squint for the moment it took Tyreen to turn her attention away, instead of another burning pinch to a growing bruise.

“We’re a respectable pimp and pimpette, that’s why,” Tyreen answered. “We’re going to hit up the warehouse before sun-up, party with the crew. We’ve got to look fly for the congregation, cause they’re going to be looking to us for guidance.”

The words didn’t exactly match the figure. Tyreen, standing there with her arm still looped with her brother’s and the other held out inviting him to witness her majesty, was neither pimp nor pastor. She was actually about two shades of makeup and a few pocket chains away from being full blown goth.

Of course, being her doppleganger as he was, Troy knew just where she was planning for them. It was a smoky, strobe light-filled warehouse just across the water. In another block they would be able to see it from under the spinning wheel, just another dark speck among dark specks that made up a collective city. The outside would be dark and uninviting, the inside, at this moment, no doubt packed with a writhing mass of flesh and black leather trying to collectively snap their necks through sheer force of headbang alone.

“Gots to set a good example for all the little pimplings that’ll be eating out of our hand before the night is over. We’ve got rules for partying, you know. If you can cut someone with your eyeliner, what’s the point?”

“What is even the point?” Troy agreed. He was still just talking to fill in his own absence in the conversation. Being caught in Tyreen’s squall meant he could spend hours on the receiving end of a conversation, it was enough to make a man feel left out. Except, Troy was enjoying the ride, a little, miniscule tilt of a smile hiding on an otherwise blank face.

He didn’t care about their makeup. Truthfully, neither did she. They would have hit the club in a t-shirt and skirts if not for the constant need to make their partner stand out as much as humanly possible. Troy’s misfitting leather jacket fit just perfectly to hang off the arm of Tyreen as she strutted across an island well past midnight. Tyreen’s look was the perfect sign spelling “looking for trouble” and pointing directly at the man on her shoulder.

But their looks weren’t the focus. Neither were the words.

If Troy had spent the entire night and the rest of his life sitting on that bench in silence with her, he was pretty sure life would be alright. The bench had been a calm port in the storm. Each step away from it had been more turbulent, until they were both dark silhouettes against the light of the ferris wheel and Tyreen was stomping her oversized boots with each step and swinging his arm so wildly that he was in danger of either falling over or being dislocated.

It wasn’t about the intensity of Tyreen’s storm. Or the comfort. To Troy, it was being safe and content to go with the flow. To get settled on the raft and let Tyreen point its direction.

Tyreen was still talking, her voice like echoing wind chimes in his ear. Each word was accented by something, a dramatic pause, a sweeping gesture, even the simple ways her eyes would widen and then search his out for validation. Each time she would find his eyes on her, the softness of his stare wiping each little blemish from her. Brightening the sunny highlights of her skin. Sharpening the brilliant shine to her eyes. Smoothing away the tired smudges from her makeup and combing through the tattered knots in her hair.

Troy had never really contemplated perfection before. In fact, he made a lot of efforts not to contemplate much of anything. That stuff was all for Tyreen to do, his part was just to make sure they kept rolling after she started them off.

But if Troy had to pick out the definition of perfection, it would probably be that dorky smile Tyreen gave after making another joke with him underneath the ferris wheel of a run down amusement park in the middle of the night, homeless and on the run. An oddly specific example of perfection, but a fitting one.

A few moments of staring started to meld together in his sleep addled mind. Another few, and he realized it was because things had gone silent.

His first instinct was that time had stopped. But the shimmer of light reflecting from her sea-breeze strewn hair corrected that thought, if only partially. Time had stopped, in a way, because Tyreen had stopped, and thus they had both stopped.

She had gone silent almost the exact moment they got directly under the ferris wheel. Not because of anything else, but because at that moment she had begun to realize just how taxing it was to keep looking away from Troy’s gaze. To stop basking in the warmth he was radiating with that little, tiny, miniscule smile he would no doubt pretend wasn’t for her and wasn’t because she was the greatest person in the world or anything of that nature.

And so magnetism had caught them in a perfect line. It had brushed the words directly out of Tyreen’s head. Had driven the thoughts from Troy down to his very understanding of time itself. Had stuck the two of them, eye to eye, the beat of their hearts beginning to drown out the drone, the entire world outside of themselves melted away into a smear of color framing their own subjective definitions of perfection.

Tyreen couldn’t remember a time her face had grown so heated. The subtle ways her brother looked at her had always been warm to her. Not physically, but in the sense that the world had been cold to them growing up, and yet here she was, strong and healthy as if she had been forged from an inferno. She could fully connect that to Troy’s radiance. It had just been radiance previously, not a searing heat that burned her face, dried her throat, and constricted her lungs.

“Wh-what?” Tyreen also did not stutter. There wasn’t a submissive or weak bone in her. Except potentially her fibula, but that was another story.

Before he could answer, Troy let instinct pull him down. His head tilted towards hers, still locked to her gaze, but on a direct course for her own. It could have been an asteroid and Tyreen would have been less petrified, because at that exact moment her own thoughts synced with Troy’s and she understood the concept of being unable to understand the flow of time and the difference between the past, present, and future. Just still images of something present, still images of the present as it occurred, all waiting to be mixed into a narrative that she could only piece together later.

And then lips, feather-soft mixed with cracked skin. They pressed against her temple, just under a strand of hair that had matted away from the mass. In that moment all the feelings connected between them and sparked to life at once. The excitement, love, adoration, anxiety, fear, all of it boiling inside of them to a pressure that their bodies could barely withstand, judging solely by the fact that Tyreen had forgotten to breathe half a minute ago and Troy had no understanding of the fact that this was something he had physically done.

The moment only lasted a second. The kiss only landed on her forehead. Troy wasn’t entirely sure what he would have done if he had a better angle, or had been a few inches shorter.

The silence after wasn’t as awkward as it might have seemed. Troy was too puzzled by himself to consider his own actions. It was only a brief rest before he was caught along in Tyreen’s squall once more, tugged to walk through the starfield of hanging lights and half-abandoned game kiosks.

It wasn’t awkward, but it was a little more empty. The pleasant wind chimes of Tyreen’s voice had been silenced, her face turned strictly in front of them while the fire inside burnt at her cheeks.

Had they been smarter twins, they might have realized that something more important than becoming homeless outlaws had changed that night. Something fundamental. Something that painted every look, every touch. Woven into a glance at Tyreen as she cheated a win on the strongman. Emblazoned over the image of Troy under a brilliant flash of light on the dance floor. Searing under their skin as lazy fingers traced bare arms in a stolen hearse at sunrise.

There was something different. Different in the very basic, foundational way that the twins were. Something growing out of an innocent touch.

Something new, yet, between them, entirely welcome.


	2. Club Crawl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

There was a wake behind the twins now. Not something that had existed when they had bled from the shadows into the sparkling lights of the living.

An idle glance at two silhouettes superimposed over the city. A furtive look at the striking figures passing nearby. Each person witnessing their journey found themselves in possession of another piece of a puzzle. Some saw a hint of the picture it was making, some just an abstract bit with no context of structure.

One piece was Tyreen’s free hand idling across Troy’s arm. The focus of her eyes on their connection. Little looks of feeling and thought, a window into a well of feelings deeper than their own understanding.

That thing between them had only just begun to blossom. And though their words, their pace, distance never changed, the conditions of their closeness had formed something new.

It trailed behind them through outside eyes. Watched as they stopped, just a few moments by each roof still over a conscious figure. A strongman, shooting gallery, candy parlor, all left in the wake as the pair drifted through.

Then, in a reflection of how they had appeared, they were back in shadows. Down paths lit only by the milky orange sky. Stairways leading to sand. Along the bay, the same ocean, a different view. This view was imposing lengths of darkness stretching up into the sky, a galaxy of lights, twinkling and flashing across the ground, reflected in distant ripples of water.

Silence had settled in with them some time ago. A full silence, one that wrapped its arms around the pair. They, insulated from their problems in that calm, continued a casual stroll.

Tyreen was still wrapped around Troy’s arm. Her head was rested against the firm muscles of his arm, tilted to look out over the city. She wasn’t viewing the city, just letting it drift by her vision, thinking. Her thoughts were on peace, for once, on the warm fullness still seeping its way in through her brother at her side. She was only partially thankful it wasn’t a searing heat, died down to a more subtle warmth. The kind she imagined a fireplace and a cozy blanket would feel like.

The burning did return. Malcontent to leave the pair alone, it found them alone in a small room. Tyreen was seated upon a porcelain sink, framed by mirrors as much crude markings as glass. Troy was in front of her, bent slightly, face close.

Between them, just a few items of makeup remained, the kinds they carried to touch up during a club-crawl. They were shared, passing between hands that would hold them like a medium for every bit of their concentration, focused into the tiniest of details.

Of course, the act of applying makeup forced attention. They were so close, Tyreen could see every speck of color across his eyes. Subconsciously tracking every curve and line on his face, she could only think how familiar it all was. Each detail, written into the deepest facilities of her mind, recognized and allowed in like old friends bringing gifts. Safety, love, a holistic idea she could only attribute as love.

The one small favor the searing heat in her face, just inches from Troy’s own, gave was control of her own self. The puzzle of being so paralyzed by a single action remained, as did the memories of that innocent pressure to her forehead. More concerning to her at the moment was just keeping her hands moving, given that her voice had failed her. That, and the heat spurred from their distance was creeping throughout her entire body. She could feel it settling lower and lower, nerves, both emotional and physical, tingling to life the deeper it reached.

Neither twin was innocent. Written into their faces in dark lines sharp enough to cut were declarations of their rebellion, their forsaking of innocence.

But Tyreen felt innocent. Guilty touches, carnal pleasures, known vices were comforts to her, to both of them.

The fire inside of her felt different than all of those. Stripping away the simple and mundane, spurned on by the blossoming presence between them, it felt more intense than the past’s strongest vice. Felt as though parts of her were exposed and raw to things she had no control over, could only witness and fear.

The true fear in her was that it felt as if it was just starting. An ember. An ember in a hearth she had run cold her entire life, for fear of how powerful the flame truly was.

Ironic, she realized, that this new problem of hers would have felt so much simpler if she could just discuss it with Troy. He was the caretaker of all of her secrets, his mind a vault of truths and feelings, dreams and fears, that she would entrust on no one. No one but him. The very source of the thing he could help her the most with.

Tyreen contemplated in her own way, stretches of silence and bouts of manic prose as deep as her fingernails. Her mind was too occupied for substance in their conversations.

But it was enough. The occasional quip held them on a slow stroll down a wide sidewalk. One side held railing, and beyond that, the beach and bay. It was the side Tyreen had gone back to staring at, thinking only of the presence of Troy’s body, his arm against her head, his hand laced in hers in his pocket.

In just the short span of their walk, the roots of their connection had grown deeper. Furtive glances matured into long looks of love. Idle touches lengthened, skin seeking skin of its own accord.

“I would say step two is going along pretty fucking well,” Tyreen said. She didn’t have to explain.

In fact, it was only on the comment, thrown out without a thought, that either of them thought of the past. The idea that just hours before, they had been questioning their very position and destiny in the universe seemed as foreign as the world outside of themselves at the very moment. A thing, yes. It existed, sure. But only to a degree that it held no significance on the moment.

“Step two?” Troy asked in reply. “Which one are we on now, two point three? Two point four? Or is this… step two of the plan for the plan for step two… point one?”

Tyreen rolled her eyes and shook her head, but failed to banish the urge to draw her lips into a wide smile. The little teasing comments he would make were just another part she cherished of him, a testament of his attention and care for her.

The thought to retort back did cross her mind. Crossed, then left, leaving the door open instead for the moment itself. The ambiance, the present, but not a present for jokes and teasing barbs.

It was a present for the cool breeze gifting the murky sea smell. Cold wind on one side of her face, a warm body on the other. The synchronized tap of their thick-soled boots, a backdrop of waves harmonizing with the ambient drone of a city, ever moving. For just the faintest tingle of excitement, for the present was an interlude between the journey and the thrill of the party before them.

Each step from then built the tension. The faintest hint of static electricity, goosebumps across her skin, built into a jolt of energy waiting for release.

A dingy alley between ancient brick buildings coated in centuries of grime and spray paint led them off the main road from the bridge. Mazes of garbage and dumpsters shadowing deathly-still blankets followed. The buildings toppled, towering castles of sleeping residents near the roads falling way to looming monolithic warehouses lined, one after another, among a menagerie of shipping machines and tagged vehicles.

Each sight passed was another flood of excitement. Troy felt it simply because Tyreen did. They both lived for the seedy underbelly of civilization, the freedom and power it allowed them. Among civilization, they may have been outcasts, discarded like the trash piling between the buildings here. Here was different, this was their kind. The disenfranchised. The rebellious. The open ears to which Tyreen’s words were the music of sirens. They had power here.

It was just the source of their enjoyment that differed between them. Tyreen fed off the sway she held on the masses, Troy fed off her more than anything.

Like now, pushing their way through loose chain link between two darkened structures. They were out of sight, an alley so far removed from light of any kind that Troy might have lost Tyreen if not for her hand in his pulling him along. But that didn’t stop him from feeling her excitement, from feeling himself excited over a party no different than every other night of the year.

“This is going to be the absolute shit, babe,” Tyreen was saying. She had been talking a while. Ever since she pulled their hands from his pocket and began to lead the way. Not that Troy could remember a specific topic she had covered, or what words she had said.

He was good at paying attention, would insist that he was if asked. Focus had never been a problem before.

His lack of focus now was the problem. It was new to his life, a face he was unfamiliar with until it had appeared under the ferris wheel. And again, eyeliner in his hands, her eyes pointed to the ceiling, allowing him all the time he needed to admire her up close. And again, shuffling across the bridge, eyes glued to hers while she was faced out towards the city.

If anything, Troy was beginning to question if this was a focus problem at all. He was well aware that he hadn’t listened to a word she said, but those words were replaced by the near-obsessive presence of her in his thoughts when he would have felt it completely normal to not be thinking at all. He only did snap into the present when she turned her head back to him and repeated herself.

“Well?” Tyreen asked.

“Uhh…” Troy opened his mouth, but only a dull sound came out. Painted across his face was a sense of intense confusion, eyes searching their surroundings in a way that made her suspicious that Troy had no idea where they actually were.

“The rules, dummy,” she repeated once more. “Remember the rules?”

A pause. Tyreen watched him read through the pages of his memory, scanning through their entire night before he could even begin to answer.

“Fly motherfuckers look like pimps?”

She didn’t even look mad. Troy fully expected her to. His memories of painful pinches were much clearer than anything since, save for the framing of her face against the horizon, the picture-perfect image she was from mere inches away, or any number of other moments she had shared with him tonight.

Instead he was graced with a smile. Just a small one, the kind a wife would share with a photo of some fond moment in time with a husband. Calming. Affectionate.

“I’m going to start calling you dummy from now on because it fits,” she said, each word infused with her little smile. “But, no- well. We are fly motherfuckers…”

If Troy hadn’t known Tyreen like he did, he might have thought she was trying to seduce him. Her prideful little compliment came out flirtatiously smooth, smoother than any cigarette or whiskey he had ever tasted. It was also timed with her sliding up to him, closing the distance until they were chest-to-chest, allowing her to reach up and tug one tilted edge of his collar back into position beside his jaw.

Even knowing Tyreen, the move was so seductive and suave that it enamored him. That it made him think she was flirting, or maybe wish she was.

Tyreen was contextualizing the action different. Her view was the equivalent of stepping into a fire. She knew it was there, she had seen it, was well aware it was hot. She even knew that her first step in could well be her last, so hard it was to step away from the flames that the possibility had yet to occur to her.

But instinct, a lifetime of teasing and quips, had betrayed her. She had taken the step, close until the smell of the city was gone. Leather, metal, faint cologne, a tinge of bitter-sharp so familiar, so disgusting and yet intoxicating.

Eyes caught his collar first, chest second. The familiar shape evoked images of bare skin. Not just images. Desire. Desire for the layers between her hands against his shoulders to disappear, for the distance between them to shrink to the infinitesimal.

Worse yet, traitorous eyes gave into an addiction she was only just beginning to know. Up they went to the crook of his neck, skin just visible over the t-shirt he wore beneath the jacket. Along the lines of muscle and sinew, flawless skin, the faintest hint of stubble, sculpted jawline, lips sweeter and more inviting than any drug. If the kiss at the ferris wheel had been a match, this betrayal from her body had placed her into a bonfire.

Fixated on his lips, she had no thought about how very, very tempting they looked. This was all well beyond thought. Feelings so many times deeper, so many times more fundamental than a conscious consideration of something.

The temptation of his lips was the very culmination of her body’s desire. So deeply hidden inside of her that she had no control of it, that the appearance itself would have shocked her had she been considering it. But she wasn’t, she was just feeling.

At that point, she had joined where Troy had been since her focus had begun to drift up. The lanky height had had grown into settled him over a head taller than his twin. Their pause had happened at the corner of the building, and a caution sign tagged with devil horns above them was closer to his head than she was.

One of the things Troy had many opportunities for since his height had come in was watching Tyreen. The path ahead was her natural target, be it the horizon or the ground at their feet. Since she was between him and the ground at his feet, he could just watch. The focus, the expressions, the emotions and demons swimming restless in the eyes behind those expressions.

Observing Tyreen was a habit. Seeing desire across her face was almost common.

Feeling the desire was new. That particular demon seeped out of her. From the rasp of her lungs struggling to find air. From the tension binding her limbs in place. From her eyes drinking up everything before her.

Even if he had ever seen her looking so wanting- so desirable, he had never been on the receiving end of those eyes. Had never felt the intensity when they landed on their target. Like she was trying to tear into him with a look alone, strip him down to his core and consume what was left.

It worked. Must have. Troy felt what must have been death, mind leaving his body, ascending somewhere dangerous and unknown.

Instinct. Magnetism. Two fingers tilting her chin up. A loose grasp. A hand on her back pulling them into a sealed whole. Breath shortened, then gone. Inches slipping away. Eyes closed.

Lips met in a tentative touch. Afraid. Afraid that too much would shatter them like glass. Afraid of a taste so sweet the instant addiction would sweep up their pieces and bind them together, atom to atom, until they couldn’t live without a shared breath.

Even one brief touch was intoxication defined. Not just their lips, not just a kiss. They were connected. Truly, deeply connected. Invading into each other was a profile of smells that would put any five course meal to shame. Warm breath mixed with the inert flavor of their skin, the familiar depth of smell of their hair, of worn leather, motes of perfume and cologne, with something deeper, undefinable and yet assuredly them.

With mouths fused with the softest touch, drinking in the taste, and lungs full of a heady drug that was so uniquely them, it was almost impossible to experience their bodies as well. Almost. But his hand was at the base of her back, pressed against skin, the chill of each digit shivering up her spine. Her body was joined with his, so each soft curve could touch as much of the roughness that was him as possible.

Neither had deeply considered the parts that made up each whole before. But Troy was already addicted to the feel of her skin in his hands. Tyreen could only process so much, and each part of him that she felt and saw and experienced was another part that wrote itself into the back of her consciousness.

Troy was attractive in her eyes, always had been. This was new. This was the difference between seeing someone objectively attractive and being instantly attracted to any part of them, a preference for any and everything that made them them. Tucked into the unprocessed thoughts forming an orderly queue in her head, Tyreen knew she was going to have a problem. It would be almost impossible to look at him without becoming lost, without trailing endless through the peaks and valleys on a journey of the eyes she would be happy to take.

If time had stretched past comprehension at the ferris wheel, it stopped here. The simple action of lips meeting, melding together, forming new wholes and sharing of themselves, surprised both. Neither wanted it to stop, and rather than consider the morality, the ethics, the legality, or any of the many valid points in the context of their simple little action, they continued.

It was that simple, really. Thoughts, doubt, fear, all of that could come later. A few more seconds of intoxicating sin wouldn’t hurt.

It was only when a pause for air lasted too long that time began to churn again. Troy settled back into his body. Tyreen’s thoughts began to process through their queue.

Both had paused in place, still close enough to feel the breath of their mouths teasing their skin. Both trying to internalize what had occurred and the meaning of it.

Tyreen’s first attempt at processing the event was thinking that she was grateful she hadn’t closed her eyes. Making out with Troy in the street was one thing, that kiss was one thing, even if it was one thing that happened to be far more jarring than any singular event in her memory. Lovingly closing her eyes and turning the entire session romantic was a danger she knew she wouldn’t escape.

It was only at Tyreen’s second thought that she slowly opened her eyes to actually look at Troy. He was stood in place, simply staring at her. A perfect excuse for her to stare back, drowning in the dread that she had just kissed Troy like a schoolgirl with her first crush.

She was also positive that she was feverish now. Perhaps even sick. The kissing itself had been fine- at least in terms of her body heat. But the aftermath, the vicinity, the connected stare of infinite emotion, that was no longer fine.

Troy’s mouth might as well have been bellows, his lovingly gentle breath turning the bonfire inside of Tyreen into a raging wildfire. No sea breeze could cool her. Her face felt hot enough to fry an egg, but now the heat had travelled down the entirety of her. She felt like her hands were blushing, and something told Tyreen that wasn’t physically possible.

That was all ignoring the actual elephant in the room. Or, at least the elephant on the pier with them.

Tyreen felt it against herself, straining to pierce the layers of skinny pants and jackets separating them. Their connection, Troy’s hand on the small of her back, her hips pressed into him, torso arched back to give their face’s access, made a painfully obvious bridge where his hips aligned with her stomach.

“That’s the wrong hole for that, you know.” It just slipped out of her mouth, words seeking Troy out in their betrayal before she even had the thought to put them back in.

Troy looked down between them. He shifted slightly, nudging the bulge of his skinny pants against the groove of her bellybutton.

“I could work with it,” he said after a moment of appraisal.

Despite their situation, despite themselves, he found a smug grin working its way to the surface. Even Tyreen was helpless against the amused smirk that came to match it.

“To think I just literally kissed you like a fucking schoolgirl. Thank god you opened your mouth to remove all that tension.”

He chuckled, a quiet, hearty laugh. She felt it, both in where his stomach pressed against her and where his tent was still angled into her.

“Here I thought you were just falling for my charming wit,” Troy teased with a smile. “Now I learn that you’re only after me for my body.”

“Puh-lease,” she retorted, rolling her eyes at his look of faux-hurt, “I’m probably the only person who would like you for either of those.”

“Eww… you like me? That’s ga-” before he could finish, Troy gave a hiss. His hand snaked away from her back, touching his side where Tyreen had just jabbed him.

The joking helped. The quips and wit eased the tension, gave them a chance to breathe and exist without being consumed.

But Tyreen couldn’t shake the feeling. She knew that she had walked into that fire that had been threatening to consume her. Knew there was no escape. Knew she didn’t want to escape.

Even a look, eyes unfocused as they settled over his chest, was enough. Attraction had rooted itself in, sitting passenger in the cabin of her head, if it wasn’t driving already. What she saw sparked a desire that had only just settled, and if anything had grown and evolved in those few seconds.

She realized it was different now because she realized that the problem he was still sporting in his pants mirrored hers entirely. The too comfortable sensation was only new in how easily and how quickly it had manifested, tingling through her hips and bringing with it the urge for pressure of her own.

That by itself was her hope of escape fading. So too was the sense of loss, the need and greed that she felt the second his hand left her back.

At first his skin was cold, a pleasant ice pressed against her in a moment where she was burning up. The absence was colder. Were it not for the discomfort of her existence losing control to the desire of her body, she would have snatched his hand back and forced it on her.

Instead, she took a step back. The air in his absence became a blizzard, a chill far worse than one simple hand. Treacherous thoughts followed, suggestions of the closeness they could have. Temptations at drinking from his lips once more, sucking as much of that intoxicating sense of him into her as possible just to fill the void she felt inside, spurred by the realization that the scent of him, the feel, was now just an impression and memory instead of real and encompassing.

“So,” Troy muttered, “That was something.”

“That was… certainly something,” she agreed.

There was one difference between them and their positions. Both had fallen, hard. Both felt the confusion, the fear. Both were trying to handle just how to process a sudden, fundamental change to their entire life.

The difference was that Troy was a man. That moment with Tyreen had been like losing control of his body, an out of body experience that he could only feel had left him deeply changed in ways he wasn’t aware of yet. An experience of frightening danger, carrying the threat that the next time he fell into it, he would end up somewhere he had no handle of. End up as someone he didn’t know. Risk losing a bond with Tyreen that his very life depended on.

But, as a man, Troy and Troy’s brain were only one half of the control. He certainly felt the fear. He felt an anxiety at the simple act of opening his mouth. Wanted nothing more than to keep it closed.

“It- it wasn’t a bad something…” He said regardless. He was scolding himself inside, if only for the stuttering, the awkward tinge to his voice, and the inability to actually look at her. Troy was scolding himself, but the conductor of the Troy Train was straining in happiness that he had taken the chance.

“Uh…” Tyreen managed. The dark alleyway full of murderous horrors across the street was looking pretty tempting to her at that moment. Her expectations of a tactical retreat of jokes and teasing had been halted, stopped by the open void in the wake of Troy’s seemingly innocent comment that he obviously wasn’t quietly waiting for an answer to.

“N-not the worst,” Tyreen found herself replying.

Their halting conversation had cycled back in on itself. Awkward silence, broken momentarily by teasing quips, back around to an awkward silence.

The earlier silence had been hot, feverish skin and searing touches felt across it minutes after. In contrast, this moment of quiet was a cold one. Furtive glances away from each other hid a chill in the absence of their closeness, a cold of a new longing that had ambushed them through seemingly innocent actions.

Once more, Troy was in a position where he could observe his twin. She only saw him if she looked up. He was always looking down, had been for as long as he could remember in a tell to the seedling feelings that he only recognized now.

There was a difficulty in making out her details here. Both had yet to move from the corner of the warehouse. A few minutes walk still laid between them and their destination.

This far out in the fields of warehouses and loading cranes, very few lights broke through the darkness. They covered the doors, the loading docks, dozens of dim marks of light against the darkness that both twins formed a part of. If not for the haze, the perpetual curtain of faint light reflecting back down from above, Tyreen may as well have disappeared into the dark when she stepped aside.

Just enough existed as faint outlines for him to see her. Both arms had wrapped around her stomach, shoulders had tilted down, and her head angled away from him and disappeared behind a sheath of her mohawk.

In his life, the number of times Troy had seen Tyreen shy or self-conscious could be counted on one hand. But, there she was, hiding beneath a meekness that Troy wouldn’t attribute to her in the first place.

The image was foreign to him, uncomfortable. Like tarnishing fine metal, or smearing the perfect portrait. Tyreen herself was a work of art, as far as he could care. In fact, he did care about her more than any piece of art. Not just sentimentally, but in the sense that he would admire her for hours longer than the finest paintings.

Something had to be done. What, he didn’t know. He was still processing the situation, or would be if he wasn’t making a conscious effort not to just to focus on his sister. It was hard to ignore certain parts of himself, but the need to fix the situation beat out the need for other things.

Tyreen was faced away still, breath slowly balancing to a slow crawl of cold air into her lungs. She heard the shuffle beside her, the tall boots shuffling carefully across the concrete to her side.

She listened. Didn’t dare to turn around as his arm pressed up beside hers. Or as his hand snaked down, fingers placed into her palm but daring to go no further.

The hasty plan she had made to not react to him, to not even acknowledge him, fell from its proverbial window. She pushed her fingers open instead, tilting to meet halfway, until they laced into one and cautiously entered the confines of his jacket pocket.

Such a simple act. Not only a simple act, one that had been the normality of their entire night. The simple connection that had tethered them together, keeping them bound into one. One body, connected through fingers and palm, one soul shared wordlessly with touch and sight. One path, completed perfectly in sync.

The urge to pull away existed. And yet, the idea felt cold and callous. It felt like an insult to a brother who had only ever cared for her, and could no more control the depth of his caring than she could. The thought of scorning him now was too wrong.

And, it did feel pretty good. Their separation had existed only a few scant minutes. A lifetime too long, in her opinion. Having him back at her side felt natural, for lack of better words.

“We might be a little fucked up,” Troy admitted quietly.

Tyreen’s response was a humorless laugh. After that display, that description of them was only natural.

“But, shit,” he continued. “Have we ever been anything else?”

She didn’t know how to respond then. It was a metaphorical question they both knew the answer to. Their conservative was the world’s provocative. Their every day was a new challenge to see how many laws could be broken.

“And, you want to know something?”

“What?” Tyreen had finally looked over to ask. The attempts he had given her deserved more than just a cold shoulder, she knew. But, she was already distrustful of him. Not fundamentally. Nothing could shake that core, much less put a crack in it. The distrust she felt was as light as a feather across her face. The intrinsic knowledge that he would try something, anything, to put a smile on her face. The feel of a smirk on his face that she could not see.

“I seem to recall,” he started, his words pointed accusingly at her, “That someone told me to fuck the world.” Troy pushed against her, such a wide smile across him that it jumped from his face and onto hers. All because he was twirling his hips in a circle across her side, voice coming out in sing-song. “And you are my world!”

“I’m going to fucking gag!” Tyreen huffed at him, pulling away to try to put any amount of distance between them, only to be caught by their laced hands and stopped in place.

“Well, I wasn’t going to try to go that far, but…”

“Troy! If you do not shut the fuck up I will chop you down by your ankles.”

She had one foot drawn back threateningly, not that her little legs could reach him from the distance of their arms.

Despite the threat, her words had no teeth. His words lacked command.

One small, embarrassed smile finally came out to match the self-aware, cocky grin. There was an echo of laughter, simple, unvoiced, like the ghost of a laugh conjured by instinct, behind each face. The memory of raunchy jokes and teasing until biting humor had torn into them and only crying eyes and empty lungs remained, lurking beneath the surface of their smiles. Like riding a bike, so natural that it was always ready.

But the amusement died over time. Troy’s mask fell to a look of serenity, one so tightly focused on Tyreen’s face that she felt locked into place staring back.

“It doesn’t matter what we are,” he assured her.

She knew what he meant, what he was actually referring to. Their clasped hands, the meaning behind just a subtle squeeze, only highlighted it. That thing between them. The connection. The soul. The sharing of one heart and one mind in two bodies. A thing that would exist regardless of what they called each other, whether it was friends, twins, siblings. Even lovers.

Who they were wasn’t going anywhere. They could paint the side of that house as many times as they wanted. Paint was just paint. At the end of the day, the walls were still the same. Just thinking that made everything seem so simple. The first answer of a puzzle that Tyreen had thought far too hard on.

“Not entirely true,” Tyreen said. She ignored the look of curiosity on his face, stepping closer to use her free hand to poke him softly in the stomach. “A lot of people are relying on us to be fly motherfuckers. That matters. And we can’t do that if we’re hiding our faces up our asses in some dark alley, can we?”

“You know,” Troy replied thoughtfully, “I don’t think we can.”

“Step two point two,” Tyreen recited. “Fuck the world. Worry about shit when it’s time to worry about shit.”

Troy nodded, gently guiding her back to his side even as he corrected her, “Think that’s two point one.”

“What the fuck ever. It’s rule eleven now.”

“Oh, now you’re just being petty…”

“Bitch, I can be petty if I want…”

By then, they were already arm and arm, feet languidly drawing forward. The noise of their chatter drifted as languorous as their pace, so soft that little could be heard in their own bubble. Tyreen’s head had returned to its position against Troy’s bicep. He was humoring by turning down in her direction, faces just inches apart, closer than they had been most of the night.

If anything, the awkwardness between them was just another step. A hyperfixation on their parts, so aware now of each little move, each detail. Every moment was meaningful, if only to them, but so deep and profound that the pair who had already shared one heart, one mind, shared more- more than before, more than an outside eye could hope to comprehend.

Late was an inaccurate description of their arrival. The sky above was unchanged from the start of their journey, same murky haze that followed their walk closely. Yet, the city itself had changed.

Their goal was built atop the pier, a structure that stretched out far and wide and back past what they could see. Towering protectively behind it on either side were looming cranes, dark lattice against faint orange. From here, the city seemed boxed away by dilapidated structures. But concrete ran the distance between them and the water, and they could see across to where they started.

Like the skyscrapers had been asleep on their approach, the island had relented and joined the world’s slumber. The ferris wheel had stopped, still illuminated by light, now without the twinkling to accompany its rotation. The lights across the horizon of the island had all faded down to just a few street lights beneath the wheel to mark it from the ocean.

The city had changed by slipping into its most complete sleep. In just a few short hours, if that, the sky would brighten across the water. These were the last few moments to rest before the onslaught of light and sound and chaos that was the day.

Life only resisted the night in places like this. A dozen turns from the nearest main road, down darkened, hostile alleys. This was as far to the outskirts as one could go in the shadow of the metropolis’ heart, mere feet from the nearest skyscraper, yet land that would see no real traffic during the day. And yet, huddled around a trash can that glowed an angry red, a handful of dark figures waited just outside the warehouse. Puffs of smoke extruded from each body in turn. The slight shuffle of movement showed them regarding the twins as they appeared, forming out of the darkness.

Tyreen ignored them after a cursory glance. Troy kept an eye on them as they passed. Leather died a deep blue, ripped jeans, studs and spikes everywhere. All were unique, outside of the color scheme. Not a gang Troy was familiar with, but they were scrawny and young and caused little worry to him.

Excitement was closer to what he felt. Their previous engagement had graduated into the past. Neither could shake it entirely, it seemed content to lounge on the couch in their respective minds. But the past was the past, the future was the unassuming tin walls before them, and the present was so close to that future that Tyreen might as well have been there.

“Don’t worry about buyers for now,” Tyreen warned. “But…”

“Little bit of cash never hurt nobody,” Troy finished.

“Damn straight. A roof for the night wouldn’t be too bad either.”

“As much as I enjoy your confidence, it’s a little harder to filch a house than a wallet.”

“Fuck you,” Tyreen replied smoothly. Their chatting had been quiet the last few minutes. Quiet did little to hide the excitement from her voice, excitement that stopped just there to allow confidence the remaining domain. If anything, the twins were strutting in.

Troy had adopted a longer, almost loping gait. His shoulders hung loose in front of him, head tipped down like a vulture’s on a perch.

Tyreen was quite the opposite, chin pointed up, suave confidence eased across her features. She looked like she owned the place, he looked like he was ready to tear it down.

The entrance that accepted them was hidden. No large doors, no welcoming signs. Even the door itself, once found sandwiched between a stack of wooden palettes and a dumpster, had no discerning features on it.

There was even a secret way to open it. Only once that had occurred did the building show life. Asleep on the outside, a drone from deeper within quickly replaced anything leftover from the world. Inside, the walls shook and thumped like they were entering a giant’s heart.

Stepping through was stepping into another world. Cold air outside, inside stagnant and warm. The smell of the sea, the smell of smoke, hard liquor, and brine. An open expanse, tight walls each reverberating with sound.

The rabbit hole that they had entered veered immediately down, sharp stairs taking them to the only light. The bulb buzzed above, exuding a light just bright enough to see the steps, but opening out into more darkness. With no one inside, the sight would be jarring. A long hall, no lights, just a strobe of color deep inside. Just one little area the size of a quarter, flashing blues and reds and whites.

But it wasn’t empty. Little red stars dotted the expanse between themselves and the entrance. Burning embers brightened as lungs slaked in deep breaths of smoke. The entire hall had become a fog of it, a heady mix of smooth cigarettes and far more fragrant drugs forming something tangible, something that glowed with the light of the party beyond.

Down, down the rabbit hole. The hall opened into a world of their own, completely separate of the foreign one that they had been wandering through moments before.

It was a world of misfits. Youths in dark and vibrant hair jumped and trashed across a suspended dance floor high above the faint slosh of water. Paths of concrete ran down either side of the dance floor, shoved full of couches, chairs, and piles of formless furniture covered in lanky, lazing bodies. Above, storage containers formed high walls to the top of the warehouse, leaving only the center floor and one end, where the old bay doors leading out into the sea had been boarded shut and painted over, clear to see.

To call it just a dance floor would be an understatement. There was a band, of course. There was a singer, screaming nonsense into a mic. A guitarist thrashing away. A drummer so far out of his mind that he seemed not to even realize his limbs were moving. There was a crowd dancing, if the dangerous flailing of limbs in the center could be called dancing. Or the suspicious writhing and grinding towards the outside of that pit.

The party just continued from there. The ‘lounges’ around the dancefloor was almost empty now, but many of the containers above were open, and there were plenty of leather boots and spiked hair visible for each one.

“Our future army,” Tyreen announced. She was smiling ear-to-ear, looking over the darkness and carnage.

Troy could only barely hear her. It would be unusual to actually hear her in a place like this though. Hearing, like hygiene, was not a primary focus for the present crowd.

“Troy, my dear,” Tyreen called, this time loudly and facing his direction. One arm lifted up, hand limp, and he graciously took it. “Let’s dance.”

For what was left of the night, they danced. Joined the flailing limbs beneath the strobe lights and screaming, shirtless man on the stage. Navigated through the writhing bodies around the moshpit. Joined for smokes in the hallway, around the trash fire to pull air into lungs burning of smoke.

It was funny, at least in Troy’s mind. When he closed his eyes, he could see them projected perfectly on the back of his eyelids. Could see Tyreen under the lights of the ferris wheel, hand-in-hand on the bridge, sitting quiet before the sea. All those little, mundane moments.

The funny part was that much of the party itself, the destination of their night, was a blur. Walking in was clear. Following her, eyes trailing across features of her back side that he knew they shouldn’t. But dancing, writhing, much of that was lost in a sea of color.

They were together, one formed to the other in a perfect fit, then separated among the waves. Alone, he swam through an unfamiliar world. Faces, sights, images all swirled around him. Each detail was obscured, the passing of time lost, melting together from individual pieces into long, twisting smears of paint and light. All the while he found himself searching, looking for that one stable rock to pull him out of the swell.

She would be dancing out there, throwing herself in the air enough to give just a glance as the lights flared across her. Her jacket had been pulled open, sweat reflecting the lights from her skin. Her hair was wild, matted to her face, cascading violently from either side of her head. Every part of her moved, if not from the dancing itself, from the desperate grasp of air into her lungs. Or the seeking look she gave, stepping away from another needy dance partner to pan her head from one side or another.

It was only when she found Troy, towering over the crowd, that she found what she was looking for. He had already found his target as well, her.

To discount the party entirely wasn’t Troy’s intentions. True, he had yet to actually notice or memorize a single new face. Yes, everyone around Tyreen could have well been human-sized glowsticks moving in unison. In the context of tonight, of the events that had brought them here, the things they had shared, the blossom of feelings, emotions rooting them together through their core, fundamental changes flaring up inside of them, everything else was miniscule in importance. Every place they had come was just a set piece for their moments, different lighting, different sounds, different mood. All just backgrounds.

But there was nothing more beautiful. No sight more appealing than her t-shirt clinging to her skin. Than her mouth hanging open, face framed just right by her hair, eyes half-lidded, smile sneaking its way in.

Only minutes separated them each time. Minutes before they had danced and thrashed their way back together. Each minute was a little eternity aware of the absence of part of themselves. And then, the two crashing back into one. Each moment reuniting more and more and more powerful, an addiction to each other that felt just so much sweeter every hit.

When they did finally meet, Tyreen crashed into her brother with a renewed vigor. Her every movement claimed him, clinging to his limbs and drawing him in like a lover returned from war. The desperation ebbed from her, and from him. Each movement mirrored. Where she would pull him close, connecting them at the hips to sway violently side to side, he would match, drawing every inch of their surfaces together.

That was how they found themselves once more. The entire night, both had only a tenuous grasp on time. Hours might have passed dancing, drinking, smoking. Maybe minutes.

All Tyreen knew was that it was too long. Troy knew only that time had passed and was continuing now.

The edge of the crowd was slow. Even experienced city punks could extend themselves, limbs like lead weights after a night of throwing them in every direction. What was left was a languid shuffling, grinding. A mix of too tired to lift their arms and too fearful of losing their teeth.

And Troy and Tyreen, her back to him, hands up, clawing down the sides of his neck. His hands roaming up, past pants, trailing skin, dragging across her shirt, framing her arms until their hands were joined once more above her.

Feral magnetism drew them both to each other. It attracted their hands despite a dozen bodies drawn past in a slow trance. Their senses were each attuned, even a tiny hint of their partner through the smell of ratty leather and sweat and booze was enough. The smallest noise that made it through the crashing walls of sound, of beating drums and roaring cords and too many people. Anything was enough to keep trying.

But too much of everything was building inside of Tyreen. Too much smell, noise, bodies thumping against her when she just wanted her brother and a clear head.

Clear head. That much, she at least had an answer for. Because for everything else in the world, everything else happening around her, it was all to blatant that Troy was the thing suffocating her right now.

Just a kiss had been too much. Even a kiss on the forehead. And now, his hands tracing lines down her sides, leaving raw skin and fire beneath. His breath hot against her head, filling her with thoughts, dreams, wants of claiming- being claimed. Just the sheer feel, the hardness, of him pressing down on her.

Tyreen had filled herself on Troy’s closeness. She had drank from it for who knows how long. Now she was on her way past full, and the pressure was suffocating.

Their eyes had been on each other all night. Just a glimmer to one told him enough. A hint of fear, of worry, across her brow sobered him in seconds.

His hands abandoned their trek, cupping her face. He was already drawn down into her, but now he overwhelmed her, blocking out the rest of the world with his face and his shoulders covering her sight.

“I need a fucking drink,” Tyreen managed to pant out. “I’m fucking dizzy.”

It was only a half-lie. The thought of passing out did occur to her, but dizzy was just a symptom of how suffocated she felt.

The truth mattered little at that moment. Troy already had his orders, and no sooner had she told him than he had settled her down against one of the lounge chairs and disappeared into the crowd.

The experience of losing herself beneath the waves was drawing in memories, still so fresh and crisp as the cold sea breeze outside. The first time, under the ferris wheel, he had just opened the door in her. The second time, he had opened the door and let himself in. It was just a hair, just a kiss on her lips, so chaste and innocent. And the hair he had entered had left her so overwhelmed she could barely think. Luck had been with her when she pushed him right back out.

And now? Now that she had thrown reason to the wind and was grinding openly against his lap? It was no wonder that something had been too much. Sure, it was the first time in her life she had been overwhelmed by a lover’s presence alone. But this was Troy, there was no surprise there.

Tyreen was so deep in thought that she didn’t hear the words addressed her way the first time. Or the second. By the third, she had snapped back into reality just enough.

“Hey, there…”

Things for Troy had been going similar to Tyreen’s situation. His uptake was just a little slower than hers.

By the time he stepped away from the dancing, forcing himself to the suspended bar, he had realized just how feverish he was. Everything that had been in contact with Tyreen, every inch of skin, covered or not, felt the cold air of freedom. The sudden chill made him realize just how much sweat had trailed down his back, just how hot holding her had been.

And he could admit that being able to breathe without the crowd was a good feeling. Partially because of something that they had smoked last time they’d touched fresh air. Partially because it felt so hard to breathe just one full breath when his lungs were trying their hardest to tease out the exact, perfect amount of Tyreen to filter the rest of the world from his body.

All explanations led to Troy panting over the bar like he had just run a marathon. While he waited for the bartender to bring his drinks, he snuck a quick shot that had been left unattended, tilting it down his throat to burn away the excess shaking that he felt.

The party was truly winding down now. Towards the bay, the vocalist had collapsed into a frothing fit some time ago. The guitarist and drummer kept playing on, shouting garbled obscenities with the same vigor as their fallen comrade.

The moshpit, have raged since sundown, settled to the texture of a choppy lake. Much of the crowd just past, those grinding through their slow trance, had found their exits while they still had time. A few moments more, and those leaving would face the wrath of the sun rising blearily from the sea.

“Last call,” the barman reminded, giving the lanky boy a downright contemptuous look that was completely ignored. Fun as the grizzled bartender could be, Troy had a different target.

Two glasses in hand, Troy took in one long, last breath of free air and set out. Raising his arms was enough to allow him to drift easily through the straggling crowd. No one dared knock into him, those too stoned to notice him were barely managing their own feet and in no danger of touching his precious cargo.

The bar was just a short walk across the dance floor from the lounge next to the entrance. There, he had left Tyreen. There, he found more than just Tyreen.

The first reaction that flooded him was anger. Tangled in the web of complexity Tyreen’s roots had formed in his mind was the very clear, very potent thought. Tyreen was his. At least for this one night, Tyreen was his and no one else’s.

Troy had left her sitting on the arm of a couch, one pressed up against a big wooden pillar that held up the ground level above. Now there was some man leaned up against the pillar, smaller than him by a head, but taller than her by a half. He was the scrawny kind, lanky arms of skin, bone, and muscle where the drugs had burned away the fat. Tattoos covered the paleness of what could be seen, cut off at a blue leather vest with a generic skull blazing across its back.

Were she sober, awake, and in the sunlight, Tyreen wouldn’t have even given the boy the time of day. Maneater as she was, Troy knew Tyreen had standards. Rather, Tyreen had types.

Jealousy told Troy this. Jealousy told him that even back when they had just discovered this place, back when he was just a touch taller than her and skinny as sticks, he was still twice the man. Not that he even knew this person.

But, he didn’t have to. His eyes were immediately drawn to Tyreen, Tyreen who was still breathing heavy to calm the sick feeling that had overwhelmed her. Each miniscule detail of her face was a tell, to someone who could read her. The furrowed touch of her brow. The focus of her eyes drawing up, as if stuck in a half-roll. The subtle turn of her jaw separate of her head, where her teeth were grinding.

Not the look of a woman flirting while her man was gone. In his experienced eyes, Troy thought it the look of a woman in need of saving.

She didn’t look away from the stranger in front of her. Just gave him the same, dry look, then opened her mouth and cut in with no care of what he was in the process of trying to drivel at her.

“Can you just fuck off already?” Tyreen still had to shout it to be heard. The guitarist was fading on stage, drums and screaming covering the distance between each word. But the noise was well enough for her to make herself heard.

“Wha- what did you say to me?” Despite her queasiness remaining, Tyreen rather enjoyed how he phrased it. ‘To me’, he had said, his intonation rising as if the very concept of this woman insulting him were so outlandish that it was almost laughable. As if she had no idea who he was, how important he was, around here.

Of course, she did have no idea how important he was around here. At their best, Troy and Tyreen were at the top of the pyramid. Today was their definition of slumming it, partying with the rabble. Even then, just an hour ago she and her brother had been standing out in the dark while a dozen different vagrants stared up at her, eyes glimmering as if Christ himself was performing the miracle of walking on her words, all while she traced a lyrical web of philosophy and spirituality.

All words that Troy had fed her once upon a time, of course. But the result was the same. An audience- no- a congregation enamored, not just at a preacher for their flock, but a prophet.

And this was just Tyreen on a bad day. A little queasy, but still on top, still smirking from her chair up at the boy, looking every bit like the Queen of her immediate area. Queen of castle Couch-Arm.

Troy had taken the time to place both his drinks on the convenient platform built into the supporting truss that the stranger was leaning against. Hands free, he casually leaned one at the elbow over the boy’s shoulder. Troy was in no way a beefy man, he was all angles and firmness from what Tyreen had experienced, but he was tall, athletic, and dangerous. He was a handsome jaw, a sharp smile, mysterious highlights and markings on the verge of feral, untamed hair cascading across his face, eyes like swords into the soul.

“Yeah, babe,” Troy said. He sounded casual, confident, if only because the sounds were dying further and he didn’t have to shout to be heard. “Why don’t you repeat what you said to the poor man? I didn’t catch that.”

“Alright, lover-boy,” Tyreen replied. Her smile was a sweet as molasses and sharp as a garrote.

In contrast to Troy, Tyreen was a different kind of dangerous right then. Soft and inviting as she looked, there was an uncanny animation to her face. Just the lightest widening of her eyes, contracting her iris’, made it seem as if she were staring both at someone, and through them, without the faintest inclination of pity, much less empathy. The little smile, the way she was relaxed there, the waving motion of her fingers tapping against her leg one after another, everything was just perfectly aligned to make her seem psychotic. Murderous.

“I think, what I said to him, more or less at least,” she teased with her sweetest voice, “Was to take himself out of my presence, literally fuck his own face, and then cease existing. Does that sound about right to you?”

Her attention had turned from Troy and his knowing grin to their target, looking pale in his position under Troy’s grap. Just to add the icing to the cake, she leaned over and pinched his cheek, shaking it back and forth, her own crazed smile widening.

And then Troy had released the pressure on him. He slipped away, disappearing with the slow throng of people making their exit, most at the threat of the sun, him at the threat of a pair of psychotic twins.

“Thank god you got here,” Tyreen said with a huff, her face back to being completely sober and unamused.

“Seemed like you were handling yourself fine,” Troy insisted. He had retrieved his two glasses, then brought them before her to sample with her eyes.

“Water,” he raised one arm, “And beer,” he raised the other.

Tyreen took a long swig of one, then the other, both times returning them to Troy’s hands. The liquid was cool down her throat, pushing through some air that had been inside of her, an aura that had caught inside of her like she was choking. That, the emptying crowd, the presence of her brother nearby, nearby and yet different. Different like the person walking with her the entire night had been a mask over his face, new and unique expectations obscuring the true individual life partner that she held over all else.

That was Troy. Even though he had suffocated her when she had drank too much of him, she drank from him now to clear the fog over herself. Drank from Troy’s presence to bring air back to her lungs after his presence had filled them.

Tyreen’s eyes were closed. She was just enjoying the water, trying her best to settle herself, when she felt him against her side. Her eyes weren’t needed, she could feel him everywhere over her, feel the press of his lips against the side of her temple, and the trail of his fingers as he lovingly put her hair back in place.

He pulled away and found a smile, a true smile, gracing her lips. Pure and innocent. The roots she had dug into him, the flower of some new, spectacular connection between them, all warmed inside of him at the gentlest taste of her happiness.

When Tyreen did finally open her eyes, she felt new. She knew, whether she internalized it or not, that the entire night had been building up to that. From the moment she remembered that life had no importance short of her brother at her side, through all the different feelings and desires and emotions she had never asked to explore, all the way until they had actually overwhelmed her.

The night had built into that moment, and coming out the other side she felt different. A little shaky, she insisted to herself that it was because she almost physically passed out and not just because she was mentally unsteady. A little clearer, a little fresher, more aware of where she actually was after a night spent entirely in Troy’s orbit. A little dirtier too, only because her new focus made her realize just how sweaty and grimy she really was.

And, best of all to her at least, that blossom that they had bore throughout the night had come out fully bloomed and unscathed. The attraction she felt for Troy, the love past familial bonds and yet past romantic bonds as well, all of it had internalized while she was drowning in him.

Troy was sipping at the water as well when he felt her gaze on him. Looking down, he found all the miniscule tells of a woman in love, from the wide adoration in her eyes to the parted, expectant pout of her lips.

The glass was forgotten, probably against the truss where he had been leaning. A long moment was spent drinking in the feeling, slaking in the love from across their connection, from across the gentlest of touching hands. A longer moment was spent drinking in their breath, taking their love from the source, as Tyreen had captured Troy’s face with her hands and pulled into him into a kiss as long and chaste and sweet as it was meaningful.

She was still smiling, eyes and nose wrinkling with joy, when they pulled away. For all the talk of time feeling stopped, of feelings swirling around them and bathing them and consuming them, for all the things they had felt and experienced and gone through that night, both Troy and Tyreen could only wonder at how a simple kiss could still be felt so much. How it could still warm them and shake them, bursting their emotions at the seams, filling their bodies with warmth, sparking through every thought and touching into the very concept of who they were, their identity.

All that, and then a smile against a smile. Tyreen stretched, lazily extending herself over the couch, all too aware of Troy’s hunger eating her up.

“That was a fun party,” she said when she ended up sideways on the couch, looking up at him.

“It is still going,” he suggested in reply. Just because the band had practically died over the night, and the thrashing crowds had emerged tired and bruised, then began to drag themselves away, didn’t mean that the venue was silent. A few relentless souls were still shuffling across the dance floor. More were pasted across the furniture, or trying to hide movements that were all to conspicuous. A handful of people still existed up and about and talking, some even retired to cozy candlelit rooms built into the walls above.

“Tempting,” Tyreen admitted. The giddiness in her hadn’t let up, and Troy himself felt a smile he couldn’t tamp down just watching her. “But, I don’t think this is really our scene. What say we go find a place to crash?”

Tyreen noted the shift to Troy’s expression. Where before he was all joy lighting his face in its own subtle shade, now he was hiding a please grin, all while raising a hand with a thick leather item between two fingers.

“How about on the blue Fucko’s dime, at that?”

“Troy, you beautiful bastard, I didn’t even notice you lifting him.” Shock in her voice fueled him even more, and a proud smirk was front and center while he presented his gift to her.

“That’s kind of the point, he didn’t notice either. Course, he was a little preoccupied with your tits.”

Tyreen looked down. Jacket still open, her t-shirt was visible even among the low light that remained as the rave died off. The sweat staining it was thankfully not as apparent, enough so that she could push her arms inwards and puff her chest out.

“What, these? I wonder why a big strong man would ever be distracted by these.”

Troy ignored the teasing innocence in her voice, eyes glancing down only a moment before returning to her face. A look in his eyes, a hunger, a strength, flushed her with a sudden warmth, made only worse when he wrapped a hand under her and pulled her into him.

“That was a fuck-boy, I’m a ‘big, strong man’,” Troy corrected. “And I’ll enjoy those in my own time.”

A firm body matched firm words, even as she could feel coiled muscle against her body she heard a command, an order, hidden beneath the teasing comment.

Just when Tyreen felt in control of herself, as if accepting the feelings between herself and Troy was enough to live with them, he did this. The pressure she felt seeping in paralyzed her. It filled her head with cotton, her lungs with smoke, and her hips with fire, fire that tingled with just a subconscious shift to more comfortable against him.

And then he was gone, stood all the way up and stretching out stiff limbs. And Tyreen was in his wake, trying to force command over her very own body, trying to override the need that had settled between each leg, the need for attention, the need to be filled.

Tyreen took one long, calming lungful of air before forcing herself off the couch. The queasiness had faded as much as the life around them, but the act of standing alone was as hard as it had been when they had started this journey all those hours ago. Now’s difficulty was a completely different one than the comfortable laziness that they had held, now the difficulty was forcing her own body to move without falling to her infuriating brother’s manly charm. Feeding his charisma around her would be the biggest mistake, she knew.

“Not like we’re missing too much, ditching this joint,” Troy was saying when Tyreen had finally stood. “Life of the party, right here,” he stepped towards her, offering one arm for her to take in a familiar gesture.

“Now you got it, little bro,” Tyreen teased. “Life of the party, you and me. And it don’t stop until we’re shit-faced.”

“I’m surprised we didn’t drink that much,” he admitted. They had started back off on their journey. The tunnel under the warehouse that had brought them here was no longer teaming with life, but had become infested with it. Smokers, replaced by tweakers. Those, on drug-filled benders, were clinging to the ground as Troy and Tyreen passed. The only evidence of recent life was the lifting fog of cigarette smoke.

The twins were pleasantly calm as they finally emerged. Into the big, wide world they climbed. Night still met them, though only the last few touches. A pale blue was just seeping up from the horizon, foretelling a sun that was minutes away now, and had seemed hours distant the rest of the night.

Everything was nice a serene, for a second. But their eyes had been accustomed to the dark this entire time, not even the dull light at the warehouse entrance had changed that. The figures standing in convenient places just past the entrance were all too apparent, as was the rusted shape of a car in front of them.

Troy recognized them before Tyreen. Punks. Glimmers of metal studs and spikes. Silhouettes of hair sticking up at unnatural angles, all mohawks and spikes. Faint hints of concealed weapons, likely bats and bars. Leather jackets and vests, black against the night. He could only faintly see the fronts, but he could guess that a generic skull was printed across the back, and the black of the leather was actually a dark blue.

He even recognized the one he dubbed Fucko, leaning sourly against the front of the car. No doubt his hand was itching against the missing weight where his wallet had gone.

“That’s a sweet looking ride…” Troy muttered. It was just loud enough for Tyreen to hear, and said out the corner of his mouth towards her. More than enough information for her.

“Don’t have too much fun with your friends, dear. I’ll pick you up in five?”

“Make it two.”

In a good gang beatdown, the idea was to leave monologuing out. It was a conversation of a different sort, an argument of fists and weapons. All that really mattered was doing as much damage as possible, in as little time as possible.

The moment a shout came up from one of the punks waiting for them, they all converged in. Each one was fresh and greener than cut grass, wielding their cobbled weapons as if the presence of a stick between themselves and their enemy would change the tide of the battle.

So, when Tyreen finally felt the life purr into her new car and wheeled it around towards them, just two minutes later, Troy was still more than holding his own. With headlights turned towards them, she could see half on the pavement, splatters of blood marking where they landed. The remaining three were holding at a distance, occasionally pushing forward to swing a pipe or board to sloppily strike air.

They never got to finish. The car screeched to a stop behind the hulking bruiser, door open, and Troy fell backwards before the tires let out another scream and the car took off. They were well out of range before the punks even thought to throw one of their boards in their direction, hitting nothing but pavement in their dust.

The calm that had settled around them had stepped out of the way to let adrenaline steal the show. Neither twin was worried. But fighting, stealing cars, running around swinging pipes and hiding from punks on the predawn docks, that was still action. Action enough to get their blood pumping through their veins, blood that quickly redirected itself when Troy looked at where he had found himself.

He was jammed into the front seat, knees pulled up for the door to close. His head had been resting, and was still resting, on soft thigh. Tyreen’s jacket was open even more, he could see the swell of her breasts as she panted. He could see her flushed face from below, lit just barely by the street lights they had begun to pass.

“Pull us over somewhere,” Troy ordered.

“Why?” Tyreen asked. Her eyes were still wide in fight-or-flight, but she turned down to regard him anyway for just a moment as the passing light illuminated his face.

No words. Just Tyreen turning back to the road. Then the car turning away from the lights of the main streets. The hulking structures of the pier around them. A shadow of a raised silo, blocking the hints of sunbreak from witnessing.

And, at that moment, fear. Tyreen had never felt so afraid.

The carnal fixation Troy had pointed towards her raised something in herself that she was still cautious of. Just the faintest hint had brought to life the same paralyzing force that had caught Tyreen before. A force slumbering, suddenly alive and waiting, awaiting even the ghost of attention. The force of that anticipation alone scared her. Not just a fear of the expected, but how powerful her want was.

When the car idled, then quieted, she let a random spot attract her focus. Fresh thoughts were swimming through her head, thoughts that needed time to mature. Sudden feelings too strong for straight comprehension serving as a wall for her conscious mind to beat itself against. The two sides, feeling and control, were not playing well together. Try as she might, she couldn’t process just how intense those earlier moments had been, or how much more terrifying it seemed in the shadow of Troy’s own feral need.

Very, very briefly, the thought of stopping the inevitable crossed her. She toyed with the idea, teased herself with it, knowing that this was just what it was. Inevitable.

As much as Tyreen could fear, she was fearing the very thing she was addicted to. The very thing she wished more than anything else to obtain.

In excess, what she had with Troy could strangle her. It could overwhelm her, push her out of her own senses, strip the air from her lungs, and make her sick on the overabundance.

And yet, Troy had rewritten her very concept of lust. The slate had been wiped clean, replaced with a detailed anatomy of everything that made up the very man at her side.

Tyreen had reached the point where her fear was the fear of attaining her deepest desire. It held no power outside of flavoring her own experience.

The amount of time it had actually taken Troy to get oriented was negligible. He had been upright well and long enough to have made a move. He wanted to, of course, there was little that he could want more for than to just push Tyreen back against the seat of her chair and to ravish the air from her pretty little lungs.

The urge to do just that was what kept Troy planted in his seat. Needing to just take her and kiss her, to drink from her lips until the thirst was quenched, was an urge that had matured over the past several hours since it first reared its head. Settled atop his shoulder for hours at a time, the feeling had whispered deep into his soul to just turn her head over and kiss her.

That was his security. Knowing that the need would be the same now as in a few minutes, a few hours even. And Tyreen’s eyes were on a journey, each one an icy blue window mirroring the distance her mind had travelled from their car.

Troy was rested, one foot under him, knee pointed out with an elbow balancing atop, head in his hand. He was resting and watching the thought in Tyreen’s face. Part of him was trying to follow along, part amusing scenes of his desire, played out from the position Tyreen had taken.

He could see the trail as those drifting thoughts of hers came circling back home. First she had returned to their present, then came comprehension of the steering wheel, torn up leather patched with tightly wound cloth, and the marred dashboard.

Finally she looked at him. And he looked at her.

Troy was smiling, that kind of smirk he had for every situation. A smirk for her, understanding that situation mattered little when she was there.

Tyreen was staring back with eyes as wide as saucers. After just a moment, a grin split down her face, then began to twist into a cocked smirk mirroring his.

Just a second of worry had crossed Troy. Tyreen’s eyes were the easiest read into her soul, and something had changed inside of it. The second of worry passed just as quick when he realized that she was mirroring him exactly now.

“You know,” Tyreen started, “You had me on the ropes all night. Least, I thought it was you. Turns out, my ass forgot how it feels to be excited about something new,” she told him with the tone of a rich man talking about wasting loose change.

“Anxious over the unknown,” Troy summarized. “Is that what the whole schoolgirl act has been?”

“Fuck you. This is your fault anyway, you had my head all spinning and I pegged it wrong.”

“How’s that?” He asked.

“Just like you said. I thought I was anxious of the unknown.” The smile softened, and focused on Troy was a look that was all the comforts of home. The warmth to protect him from the elements, softness to rest inside, love to bring him back. “But I was just excited as fuck and I didn’t even know what to do with myself.”

Just like the feeling of home in her smile, her words were an invitation. Each one beckoned Troy in. Everything was calling for him. Tyreen made no attempt to be submissive, or more attractive, it was the understanding of her as a person. Knowing that her, Tyreen, future queen of the world, letting her body say it was on the same level as someone else meant the rarest invitation.

Physically separated by the middle of a torn up old car seat, mentally the twins stood on opposite sides of a door. Either direction took them to the same destination, whichever one stepped through they would both end up where they were going. The inevitable. The two souls who had danced in each others wake all night, had tangled their roots into each other until they were inseparable. Who had lit the fires in each other, until the entirety of them was alight and blazing.

Whoever stepped through the door first was sanctifying a union. The union of those two souls burning into one.

“You realize there’s no walking this back?” Troy asked, still reclining across from her. Reading beneath his words and into his voice, Tyreen could hear his answer to the very question, a question that could be cut into a hundred meanings, each as significant as the last.

Sex was something neither could take back. Neither was the evolution of their relationship. Or the statement they were making of the world’s expectations. The meaning behind Troy’s commitment. Tyreen’s acceptance. Their future. Love.

Packaged neatly in a sentence was a plethora of promises. All of them tied into a lovely bouquet, a sealed declaration of her brother’s love telling her that he was willing to step forward. He would step forward, and he would never try to step back.

Awash in the comfort of his commitment, Tyreen let the pleased enjoyment highlight her face. Tan skin crinkled in a smile, just barely marred by makeup smeared by life. Crystal eyes, alight with happiness, held him without wavering, even as her body shifted forward. Her knees were pulled up, pushing her entire body up at an angle.

Years back, Troy had been eye to eye with his sister right around here. It was the same beaches, the same seas, the same buildings, more grime. The same smile, but the world that had brought that smile to life was new, encompassed entirely within the reflection of her gaze.

A charming face. A strong jaw. Eyes as sharp as a knife’s edge, as blinding as the sun, as enrapturing as the finest art. Skin, the perfect hint of bronze, smudged dark as if to highlight perfection with an impurity. Thin lips with the perfect angle. Lips, so inviting. So delicious.

She sampled them like wine. Tasted texture, soft and firm. Tasted smell, a hint of smooth liquor, natural musk, something sweet and just for her. She drew it all by herself before she let him give anything.

If there was any more fitting seal for their commitment, they could think of none. Just the sweetest kiss as their bodies closed together. The warmth between them began to burst with heat once more. The air slipped from their lungs with ease, leaving Tyreen thankful that two strong arms had coiled around her in support, even while her own hands pulled up from his shoulders to close an imperceptible distance.

Wandering thoughts aligned for a moment between the two. As their lips came to meet again and again, each time molding to a new pattern, Tyreen could only imagine they were formed for each other. Their kisses were those of the sea lapping against the shore. Meeting, melding, giving, taking, each time in perfect harmony.

The image of claiming his lips on a dark bench facing the sea made Tyreen almost sad. So much wasted time, so much effort given to a fear, fear perceived from the very want that was giving her joy even now.

The tide of their kiss left them connected with the lightest of touches. Her eyes were still closed, breath coming out in waves across his face as she tried to maintain some semblance of strength.

“You might have been right,” Tyreen whispered. She let herself smile, and she could feel him mirroring her perfectly. “We might be fucked up. Might have always been.”

Troy could barely remember the conversation. Why have words, when he could perfectly remember the first time he had her in this same situation? What he could remember was the need to take her then, just to hold her in his arms and force away those doubts and fears that had crawled out of who they were. The skin deep mask of fear, crafted by the very people who had brought them to be who they were. Just to hide who they could become.

“I think we might be onto something though,” Tyreen was continuing, still nose and nose with him. “Something that the world was fucking hiding from us. Something no one has any right to keep us from, or take away from us.”

“Is that something in my pants?” Troy asked, widening his smirk against Tyreen’s lips. “Cause I would be one-hundred percent on board with you taking that.”

“You know, babe? For once, you might just be right.”

Even between the two of them, they could think of no time when they had been so perfectly in sync. Down to the wide-mouthed smiles they had, the press of their bodies, the breathed laughter, they were the perfect mirrors of each other.

In the end, they had both stepped foot through the door and met each other in the middle. Entwined so perfectly in a union, even the simplistic enjoyments of life were amplified between shared experience. The joy on Tyreen’s face fed Troy, and he fed her.

And then their lips fed each other. The separation between land and sea disappeared, one kiss turning into two, turning into three, melding eternally beyond simple counting, each one heating until they were roiling with intensity.

With the floodgates opened, Tyreen found herself falling backwards. It was a gentle fall, as if gravity had no effect beyond the feel of her brother’s arms on her back. All the while, they were connected, making out with a growing disregard to things like oxygen.

Need, they had decided. That would be enough. The perfect replacement for filling their own lungs, when they could exist entirely on the need to draw the air out of their partner’s.

All of those expectations, the hidden excitement that had plagued Tyreen all night, were beginning to yield results. Each one was as sweet and addictive as she had imagined. The kiss alone showed that. Already, her lips felt softly bruised, and any pain or pressure that may have lingered across their surface came as the sweet, subtle flavor of pleasure.

But the touch of their lips was a single touch among many. His arms were burning on her back, as was his chest, which met her so perfectly that she could feel the entirety of his torso clinging to her.

Tyreen’s entire body felt hollow where it wasn’t touching him. Her limbs could have been separate of her body, if not the addictive hit she got dragging her fingers along his face, of pressing her arms against him.

In that hollowness was an entirely new sensation to her, the wanting anticipation from her body. As she met the seat and one arm was freed, Troy finally gave her what she was needing. He pulled one hand up her side, curving under her jacket and shirt, reaching her skin to skin.

It was just a touch. No different than their lips still met between them, or the touch of a dozen lovers she had shared, or his arm on hers during the night.

Just a touch, and yet so wanted, so needed. Every inch of her side was tingling in anticipation, and when bare fingers dragged across it every receptor she had flared at once and she was instantly burning and shivering from cold and electricity.

Her head had gone hollow as well. Thoughts were gone, slipped out her ears and watching from afar. Tyreen was left with just a heady fog and a fixation on him.

She watched as Troy finally broke their kiss, leaving both panting for oxygen and yet completely unaware of its existence. Just aware of their target, the focus of their gaze, the very most minute, deepest part in the other’s eyes.

“Fuck me,” she said once her lungs allowed it, and though it was as much a half-drunken exclamation as a command, it was a command. A very serious, very insistent command.

Troy took her once more, arms snaked beneath her while he once more claimed her lips. He held her as he might a pillow, lifted against his chest like she weighed nothing to him. Though he could do nothing with his arms supporting her but make out, the situation itself flared through her. Being carried, handled by muscular arms, held against strength poised just to use against her- for her.

This wasn’t her normal taste, she vaguely held the memory of a desire to push him down instead. But for the moment it was everything to her, a slow desire that traversed gently down her body until it settled right between her legs, opening itself up into a tingling pressure that made her unconsciously grind her hips together.

If this was it, it would still be as sweet as the lovers in Tyreen’s past. Empty touches held nothing on the anticipation of true arousal and desire.

Tyreen didn’t want that to be it. She wanted to preserve every moment, every sensation along the way.

Troy, it seemed, wanted to dive wreckless into the future. But to experience every pleasure that might be waiting for him, he couldn’t sit idle and grow intoxicated off the individual sensations of Tyreen.

He directed her, pulled her up into him, nudged her arms to wrap them around his neck, her legs to wrap them around his hips. He lifted them together, one body pulling itself over the back of the chair, landing on the softer spring of a mattress.

Only then did he settle Tyreen’s arms off him, laying them out above her head. Laying her across the mattress, all flushed skin and heaving chest as they allowed themselves a moment of rest. Just one delicious taste of air, like a last dinner before an execution. Except, the perfect flavor filling their lungs was each other, and the moment after would be only the sweetest death.

When the moment was over, and they had settled for the next set, they came crashing sweetly against each other once more. Kissing above filled her head, but below Troy’s hips had settled over her legs, only serving to increase the sensation she was teasing from grinding her hips alone. His hands were moving as well, ghosting across the top of her shirt, along her sides, up her arms.

Before Tyreen knew it, she had already shed the jacket. Chill air met slick skin, but she was still too hot, burning inside. From his touch, from their lips, from the lack of oxygen making her lungs burn and her head swim. Everything was hot.

Troy was directing an orchestra with his hands clawing up and down her sides. Tyreen had just enough wits not to be outdone.

When he drew away, she followed. Lips and teeth left a trail across his chin and down his jaw, wrapped around the beating skin over his heartbeat. She was insistent on tasting him, sampling even more than she had allowed before. Not just the sensations, but the reactions she could tease out. The shivers, the catch of his breath, the heat under his skin.

Somehow his hands had burned long trails up the bare skin of her ribs, trailing to cup her shoulders as her shirt was lifted. There was a request hidden in the pulled fabric, and she relented to herself that it would only be for a second.

Lifting the shirt revealed only more sensitive flesh to the air, all of it a tingle of cold air and inner heat and trailing sensations of skin on skin. A long, tan expanse of a perfect canvas pulled taut over her own firm muscles. So invitingly delicious that Troy had to taste.

Tyreen was caught, arms and head trapped in the fabric of her shirt, when his mouth descended on her stomach. It was just above her hip at first, a warmth, a sucking that shook each nerve to life beneath it, the tease of a tongue dancing just across. It crossed the valley of her navel, stopping just at her ribs to nibble across the flesh that had arched up to meet him.

Upwards he travelled, building sensation and arousal with each step. Up and up until he had come across a swell of softness, where her firm breasts were laid bare, each one covered in gooseflesh and pointed at the tip in a mix of chill and pure desire.

Troy sampled the outside, but only as much as it led him up in a spiral to the tip. Her breasts really were perfect, he decided. Each one just over a handful, just a shade lighter than the rest of her, with nipples the color of dark roses standing stiff before him.

They were definitely inviting him, he realized. His mouth claimed one, areola and bud whole, while his spare hand clasped the other breast and flicked a finger across its nub.

The skin across the nub was smooth because it had gone so taut. In Tyreen it was a bundle of pleasure, and his tongue was serving it. Each lick made her squirm and writhe. And then he pulled back, blowing a gust of cold air across a surface slicked with saliva. The surge of each nerve gone haywire rushed up to her head, then immediately down her spine.

Despite never having consciously thought of them, her loins had become a focus of her attention. The pleasure and desire overwhelming her bounced through her, each shiver and quiver and grinding draw building higher as it ricocheted inside of her.

Just a breath had almost brought it to a head. A breath had pulled her so close that she could feel the edge, but instead of diving into it she gasped in air she had no idea she had lost and, with one sweeping motion, pulled her shirt from her body.

She was left sitting up as much as she could, filling her lungs, eyes wide. Some mix between waking up in a cold sweat and that first breath after drowning.

Naturally, Troy searched her eyes as she recovered. She found herself looking at him as well, and could tell exactly when he had pulled some new knowledge from the nuance in her expression.

“Did- did you almost cum?” He asked. She couldn’t decide then if his smile was pleased or teasing.

“Fuck you,” she managed. “Shirt off. If you keep teasing me I’m going to legit crush your head with my thighs.”

There was the teasing smile. The kind of smile that carried his voice to her, even if she had managed to convince him to shut up for once. The kind that was already saying that said situation wouldn’t be a bad way to go.

But the smile quickly disappeared. His jacket had gone a while before, leaving only a band shirt several sizes too small for his body. It clung to each curve just right, emphasizing muscles that could disappear in the wrong light, making each little detail up his torso just that much more defined. Now it covered his head as he mirrored Tyreen’s position, pulling it off.

Of course she couldn’t let him get away with what he had done. With renewed hunger she drew into him, biting and sucking where she could, tracing the lengths of muscle and bone as if drawing him to life with her mouth alone.

“Fuuuck,” Troy managed to get out in a long, needy gasp. He parrotted his sister perfectly, ripping the shirt away, tossing it off into the unknown. But he had come out staring at her with a hunger, a hunger that betrayed her by flooding down between her legs regardless of her attempt to stare him down, to show dominance through the strength of her will alone.

She met him in the middle once more in a long, bruising kiss just as sweet and sharp as the first. He pulled them together, squeezing their bodies, a brief second separating the distance between their heartbeats.

Then she was being pushed down, or she was pulling him down. A hard pull, yanking her hips from side to side, told the battle between his hand and her belt. But he had just echoed her own thoughts, as her fingers were busy unclasping the buckle at his hips. It was easier for her, both hands focused, and then harder as he started to trail a searing line down her neck, kissing and biting and nipping his way down.

She grasped him by the hair before he’d made it as far as the peak of her breasts. Tilting her head to him, he was faced with one of the sternest, most serious looks he’d ever seen on her.

“Troy,” she hissed, “I swear to god if you try to go down on me I will kill you. Fuck. Me.”

In lieu of a response, he stared, transfixed in her eyes. Then, he drew the hand from his head, pulled the other from his hips, and guided them down above her head to pin them with a one-handed grip.

She was left lying, open to his gaze. His eyes picked her apart and touched every facet, memorized every line. Made her feel small, focused under their intensity. Not uncomfortable, but almost special.

Distantly she knew that one leg had been pushed from her pants. But reality sparked through her in a shivering wave as soft flesh cushioning a hard length pressed against her entrance. She felt it, felt the shiver run across the skin, the instinctual breathy gasp of preparation. All while locked in a stare.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. A kiss, a push. Then staring at her once more, but deeper, spreading her, filling her if only with the promise of everything.

“You’re perfect.” Soft whispers across her flesh, followed by a kiss across her pulse. Then, the thrusting pivot of his hips, a touch to her deepest reaches, her back arching into him, her legs wrapping around his hips, her lungs drawing a deep gasp frozen on the peak of her hips. Her face, half-lidded eyes, flushed mouth drawn open, a picture of ecstacy.

“You’re a goddess.” He had pulled away to witness her, to capture every detail of their joining, and breathed out a praise dripping in awe and worship. That was the ignition, and following it was a deeper joining.

He kissed her so deeply he could feel her gasp as his hips pivoted forward once more. It was a wave, started when he pulled back. Then came the smooth thrust of his hips, the long, hard length of his dick sliding deep into her. Then the pleasure shooting up, flaring through her entire body, forcing her lungs open, her mouth to hang against his, a frozen gasp.

But the worship he was lavishing upon her, whispered praise and adoring eyes, only lasted so long. Tyreen was too lost in the moment to wonder at how large Troy really was. Troy was trying to focus, but his sister was just so tight. Tight, hot, wet, wrapped perfectly around his length, pulling him as deeply inside as she could with her feet against his back.

That became their everything. If desire- pleasure- each other- if any of it was their addiction, that was the purest hit possible. It was everything they wanted, drinking deep from sensations so blinding. Emotional, physical, mental, a surge of each with every motion of their bodies.

When the moment overwhelmed Troy as well, his grip on Tyreen’s hands loosened, then drew away. Each hand cupped the soft flesh of her ass, giving a firm squeeze and himself an easier angle.

Tyreen wasted no time wrapping her arms around his neck, expression lost to pleasure. Her head tilted, inviting, as Troy’s head nuzzled in against the crook of her shoulder.

His actions were long, smooth, digging deep into her and drawing almost entirely out. The angle had shifted, still tight and warm to him. To her, each long swipe made her feel full, dragging with it every bit of pleasure it could find, then flaring even stronger as the head of his dick found a sensitive spot deep inside.

Tyreen had been almost a slave to the pleasure before. Opening herself to the ecstacy, allowing it to rush through her, filled her every want of the moment. Each action was steadily bringing her back to the edge, but building with it an edge that felt greater than ever before.

And then Troy found her weak spot. A slow, drifting river towards a descent into her own moment of infinity had quickly turned into rapids, gripping and clawing to hold on each time he reached the end and slowly scraped the burning length of his cock inside her.

“Fuck!” She thought she whispered it, mouth open, exclaiming with the intensity that she was trying desperately to control. But the voice that came out was his, hot and panting, spilling over her shoulder before he bit into it.

Tyreen had woken only briefly from the tempest. She found the present as Troy pressed his head down against her, angling her down against the mattress once more. Her shoulders were rooted against the ground, hips pointed in the air, rooted against the more solid form of his hips.

She thought the first two positions were something. She thought.

What Tyreen had never experienced was the true strength and voracity of Troy. Pressing her down wasn’t just giving so into pleasure that he couldn’t keep himself upright. It was only partially that.

It was also because the angle he had chose was the perfect angle. Perfect to lock his arms in place, lock his legs in place, lock her in place. All that left was his hips.

The length of one thrust from before became two now, then three, each digging as deep as the last. The sloppy noise of their hips slapping against each other almost drowned out the moaning, or the screams inadvertently slipping past Tyreen’s mouth.

It was no longer about building towards the edge. She was there. Her entire body was pleasure, burning raw against the surface of her skin, waiting to be let loose.

The only thing keeping Tyreen there was force of will, force directed down into an exact point just behind her clit, flaring intensely at each thrust. Her face had contorted further, pulled close to sobbing, though the wet noises in the air were entirely from her entrance.

“Fuck, Troy, I’m- cum- cumming- cum for me,” Tyreen blathered, pleaded, words mixed and broken with the force thrusted into her each second.

“Please- please- please,” she begged. “Cum for meeee-”

No amount of focus could hold it forever. It took her, bursting through the dam she had erected between her legs, flaring spectacularly across the entirety of her body. Her feet writhed, toes curling, knuckles white where they had tensed, red where they had torn skin. The only sound escaping her was a drawn moan, on the verge of a scream.

The first wave rolled her eyes back in her head. The second had yet to reach, muscles still dancing beneath her skin with the initial spasms. But Troy had yet to stop, and the second wave of pleasure was forced back behind a sharp flare of pleasure mixed with pain, hitting what felt like raw nerves.

Sensation wracked through her hips, spasms on spasms, forcing tighter as if threatening to crush Troy inside of her. Every movement was involuntary, the most Tyreen had managed was to grab and grip the mattress beneath her tight, trying and failing to focus as another edge built inside of her.

And then, a sharp, hard thrust inside, a pause, and another. Warmth flooded her, barely teasing over the tingling of raw nerves as her hips continued to convulse.

Tyreen found herself settled in a haze, enjoying the halting, almost sobbing breaths Troy was taking over her. She could still feel the waves crossing her, the tingles and shivers and warmth. She could feel the exhaustion in her lungs, how fresh and crips each gulp of air felt. She could feel the shiver of exhaustion, of physical weariness. And then, the distant tug of mental exhaustion, a reminder that the last time she had slept was over a day ago, and felt like much longer.

“Fuck me…” Tyreen managed to exclaim in a mutter, still out of breath and bathing in the afterglow.

“I did fuck you,” Troy huffed. They had both collapsed onto the mattress, his head on her shoulder, though now he managed to lazily lift it to point it towards hers. Just to give her that stupid little just-made-a-joke grin.

Tyreen couldn’t stop. She grinned, a wide, toothy grin, and felt a euphoric laughter leave her. She laughed, he smiled, they both drank in a calm feeling of contentment, a fullness. Slowly, she settled in more, one arm behind her head, one arm still holding her brother’s head.

“Just another day in paradise, huh?” She asked.

With a sleepy smile he nodded. “Just another beautiful day for the future king and queen.”


End file.
